# Am I missing something here? (re: reopening of bars, etc... now) **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [October 6, 2020, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-here-re-reopening-of-bars-etc-now/922356 "2020-10-06T17:27:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 1164
**Author:** ![SayTwo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@SayTwo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SayTwo)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-here-re-reopening-of-bars-etc-now/922356/1164 "2021-01-09T04:06:08Z")
But if you want to look at some attempt at an actual multiple – though of course it’s based on a model and not empirical observations, with all the limitations that entails – you can look at item “c” in figure 5 here: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2923-3/figures/8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2923-3/figures/8) There you see their estimates for additional infections compared to not reopening _per POI_, not per category. So, in other words, what one restaurant would contribute, on average, compared to one grocery store. The differences in that chart aren’t anywhere _near_ 100 times. They are much, much closer to 10, if not half that. I don’t pretend that this study is the final word on it, or anything of the sort, because I can see the obvious limitations the study has. But I also can see that they are making a strenuous effort to do something besides guess (or I suppose as you put it, ‘make numbers up’), and they aren’t arriving at anything remotely approaching 100 times. I am very happy to have an honest discussion about it, which is why I asked if you had seen something that would support a multiplier of 100. In fact, I’m still eager to consider it if you have. Have you? Or is that just a guess. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-here-re-reopening-of-bars-etc-now/922356)._