Good news: outdoor dinning has resumed in California. Does this mean we’ve turned a corner from the worst of the pandemic? Who knows. The conspiracy is that Governor Newson reopened eat-in dining (albeit outdoors, obviously) to fend off the recall attacks. That COVID cases - especially in Southern California - are still bad enough that people really shouldn’t be congregating together.
It’s a very tough situation. The restaurant industry has been utterly decimated by the coronavirus. The ability to serve food outdoors is a slim lifeline against going out of business. Shutting down outdoor dining isn’t because eating outside is particularly dangerous vis a vis catching the virus. It’s about preventing what comes next, after the meal is ate. To stop those who aren’t likely to simply go home afterwards from hanging out further into the night.
Some people are saying that going out is the less of two evils compared to hanging out privately. I didn’t realize a significant amount of people are meeting up privately on a regular basis. I certainly haven’t: my small bubble of people I’ve seen since the start of all of this have not changed. And it will remain that way until we’ve got the vaccine needle twice over.
I saw on twitter a clip of restaurants in Beverly Hills with absolutely packed outdoor dinning areas on a Friday evening. I don’t blame those people at all. Coming up on the one year anniversary of this whole mess, we are completely tired of it. The vaccine is showing the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, and we simply cannot get there fast enough. After a hard week of work, I too want to break bread with friends at a restaurant. So I get why folk are going out to eat soon as it was allowed.
It’s good for the restaurants to get some much-needed income, too.
Zetto!