There are going to be other strains of COVID-19, now and in the future. Frankly, if the vaccinated are reasonably well protected from the worst effects, what we should do is not shut things down, but shut them down just for the unvaccinated.
Covido in the Netherlands now, too.
In Denmark too.
Is covid-o moving around the world faster than Delta did? It kind of looks like it.
I have a huge vacation planned for NYC in 3 weeks. I hope omicron doesn’t close the city down.
The last several times around they weren’t exempt - you walked in wearing a mask, and kept it on until you got to your table (for example). I always doubted that anything much was achieved by that - I turn up at the local pub in a mask, walk to the bar, say I have a table reserved, someone takes me to the table - ninety seconds in a mask, moving around. I then spend an hour in the vicinity of strangers, all of us static and unmasked. It always struck me as a case of ignoring the high risk bits and and de-risking the easy, but low risk, bits.
Maybe there’s some research which now confirms this? But I would guess it’s more likely that we have reached the stage where the behavioral scientist on the team says, Just use some common sense, eh? The gains are tiny and you’re pissing people off - which is going to harm compliance in more meaningful areas.
Just guessing. But yes, you’re right, it’s a very specific change from previous times.
j
Yeah, the “customers must wear masks in the 90 seconds it takes for them to get to their table” thing always struck me as dumb. Separate the tables. Upgrade the HVAC. Have the servers wear masks. But either close eat-in restaurants outright or acknowledge that customers will be unmasked while there.
I’m going to Worldcon in a couple of weeks. Same hope here, for DC.
that’s pretty much safety theater. The same for the 6 ft rule . they pulled a number out of their ass that sounded good.
The wife and I got our Covid booster shots yesterday. We stuck with Pfizer.
261,763,463 total cases
5,217,303 dead
236,423,594 recovered
In the US:
49,099,590 total cases
799,414 dead
38,880,081 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
Things are moving quickly with covido, eh; Japan:
What odds we’re in the thousands by the end of the week?
j
The point is that you’re walking around during that period, and thus can more easily spread things to other people than when you’re at your table that is distanced from others.
Of course, in my experience at least, restaurants are often not actually distancing people, even when they have the space, and don’t seem to require masks for their servers. In that context, I can see saying it isn’t useful.
But we shouldn’t be doing that. Heck, we should be masking when we’re not actually eating, which I’d say is usually over half the time you’re in the restaurant.
Part of the reason I don’t feel comfortable eating out much is the social pressure to conform to lax masking. (Even my sister and her roommates who go in masked wind up taking them off at the table for the whole time.) The other reason is the unmasked servers.
(Though, of course, Omicron and the mass 60% unvaxxed around here are the same concern. It’s ridiculous that my county has the same unvaxxed rate as South Africa who is having trouble getting enough vaccine into arms.)
The “six foot” thing turned out to be based on the false assumption that it’s not airborne. Over time (like while you are eating) particles can spread throughout the room.
I understand the reluctance to destroy the entire restaurant industry. But personally, i will not be dining in a restaurant for some time. I love eating at restaurants. I got dragged to one recently as part of a memorial service (i didn’t know in advance that we were meeting at a restaurant) and the food was excellent and it reminded me how nice it is to have excellent food places in front of me. But it’s so much riskier than pretty much anything else i do. Not worth it.
Why some experts have predicted it will move faster, what you could be seeing could also simply be more genetic sequencing, etc being much more common.
Possibly. Another thing is that a lot more attention is being paid to variants now than in November last year. There were two presumptions last year, firstly that the virus wouldn’t make dangerous new mutations quickly and secondly immunity from prior infections and or vaccinations wouldn’t want for years, neither panned out as the Delta wave showed.
So they are being super cautious.
I’ve wondered if one really effective thing they could do in restaurants and bars is just limit how long a party can stay.
How would that help?
I think lowering the number of people and upgrading the HVAC are both likely effective.