Dr. Anthony Fauci recently explained how you can safely eat inside a restaurant during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
What’s going on?
Fauci told CNN on Tuesday night that people should be cautious about eating inside a restaurant during the pandemic. But, he said, it can be done if it’s “done carefully.”
- “If you do indoor dining, you do it in a spaced way where you don’t have people sitting right next to each other,” he told CNN on Tuesday night.
- He said “good airflow” is important. And, he said, you’ll want to avoid being in places where you’re breathing in other people’s breath.
Fauci told CNN that he’s aware of the economic problems that restaurants face because of the coronavirus pandemic.
- “You know, people think sometimes that public health officials are oblivious to the economic considerations. Not at all — I mean, we are very empathetic towards that,” Fauci said. “But we still have to maintain the public health measures if we’re going to get our arms around this outbreak.”
Study about eating in restaurants
A study from September from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found going out to eat at a restaurant might be riskier than other activities.
- The study found that those who tested positive for COVID-19 were twice as likely as those who tested negative to have said they went to a restaurant before they got infected, as I wrote about for the Deseret News.
- The CDC defined a restaurant as “any area designated by the restaurant, including indoor, patio and outdoor seating.”
“Findings from a case-control investigation of symptomatic outpatients from 11 U.S. health care facilities found that close contact with persons with known COVID-19 or going to locations that offer on-site eating and drinking options were associated with COVID-19 positivity.”