Restaurants in America During the COVID-19 Pandemic

WM, Special Revenue Measures, Restaurants in America During the COVID-19 Pandemic, September 25, 2020

On September 11th, my comments included the following statement: 

The current model for the virus is inadequate to dictate the necessary medical measures to prevent the worst-case scenario from occurring. Bureaucratic inertia in the CDC and medical establishment will not be overcome in time.

This is still the case. No one is asking about whether someone has been sneezing. A fever is a sign that the immune system is working. It is pre-fever transmission that is most worrisome. If the virus first lives in the nose, then sneezing it out after eating is particularly dangerous.

Meals in the home are the most likely time for virus spread, but eating indoors at a restaurant is likely the biggest offender for public spread – especially in those without alcoholic beverages. Hot food makes one sneeze, alcohol suppresses sneezing.

Instead of closing bars and opening restaurants, we need to open bars and close restaurants.

Doing this means that waiters and dishwashers are the hardest hit. If the restaurant does not serve take-out or delivery, the cook staff is also idle. Low wage workers who are idle are sent home more frequently than high wage workers. 

Many workers in restaurants are “off the books” so that getting aid to them is almost impossible. Some are undocumented, others are young people who think that not paying taxes is good for them. They are now finding out differently. That they are not on the work rolls means they cannot collect unemployment.

Low wage workers, documented or not, on books or not, will spend their money back into the economy quickly. Their highest expenses are rent and eating/drinking out. Many also eat for free at work. You cannot do so if work is closed (and in hot zones, work must be closed to stop the primary public vector).

Welfare reform dropped SNAP payments so that people on AFDC would not shift to Food Stamps to make up the difference. The unintended (and maybe intended) result is pushing people into low wage labor. If this had not occurred, it would be much easier to jump start the economy by simply increasing the Food Stamp benefit and adding a cash benefit as well. That option is still open, but it will have less of an effect.

The IRS is not a good vehicle for distributing money to restaurant workers. Federal assistance to individual restaurants (rather than chains or franchise operations) also misses those whose kitchens may have to close forever.

The answer must include money to the states for both benefits and administration. States should then give the money to workers and employers. This should occur with no questions asked regarding immigration status. Medicaid or Affordable Care Act coverage must also be expanded to include undocumented workers. Some cannot go home. It is hard to leave the United States these days. 

Ironically, many Americans living overseas fled home, thinking they would be safer. Instead, they leapt from the firing pan into the fire.

Job one is to control the spread of the virus by getting people who are sneezing out of circulation, even if they think they just have allergies or are reacting to a sinus clearing hot pepper in their food.

Job two is to give out money to displaced workers and businesses, especially those without documentation or a national presence. State government is best for that. A no-year appropriation is needed to do that. Grandstanding has no place in an emergency. We have had all too much of that lately.

Job three is to end panic. The medical establishment has not been good in rolling back measures that have nothing to do with virus spread. They do not want to be accused later, and for now do not want to cause harm by not being safe. Sadly, being to safe invites fear and fear is both the enemy of science and the cause of people avoiding medical attention because diagnosis has now become a death sentence in their minds. Bureaucratic CYA is not science.

Schools need to open without masks. Herd immunity comes from children who are more likely to shed anti-bodies than virus. We need to stop spraying everything. The science says that the virus is too fragile to survive on surfaces long enough to be a problem. 

The demand for extreme PPE must be quelled. By the time people have bad symptoms, their contagious period is probably over. Personally, I spread virus before the worst symptom occurred. No one who was with me afterwards got sick. Medical workers who did get sick likely caught the virus outside of work. They cannot infect people who are already sick, so the space suits can come off.

The takeaway is that bars can reopen, but restaurants cannot do so in hot zones. People will still spread disease in those areas where the virus has already done its damage, but they are likely to spread another type of coronavirus – the common cold. 

I tested positive for PAN-COVID, but not COVID-19, prior to a scheduled medical procedure in July (which was rescheduled for August). I had a cold – and not a bad cold. There were some respiratory symptoms, but no more than usual for any cold. In March, the real COVID put me on my back for two weeks. 

Many of the current positives outside the Midwest are likely from a new coronavirus, call it COVID-20, which is just a cold. We cannot live in fear forever. If we sneeze on each other, shake hands or share a hot or cold beverage, immunity will be strengthened more than harm caused.

If you have read my prior comments, you know I am no Trump apologist. I tell you truly, we need science to dispel fear as much as to keep safe.