Safety measures at restaurants, Dr. Birx says, needs to happen at house parties
Pushing people out of restaurants and into house parties is not the way to cap the coronavirus.
Don’t take my word for it, just listen to Dr. Deborah Birx.
“Please bring that same discipline that you’re bringing to the public spaces into your household and really limit engagement with others outside of your immediate household,” Birx said Friday during a stop in Boston.
Please take note, Gov. Charlie Baker and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh. Don’t close restaurants at all costs.
It is true that coronavirus cases are increasing in the Bay State — as predicted — in part due to colder weather and more people indoors.
Yet, shutting restaurants is not the answer. Just look across the pond to Ireland where the government has shut down at least part of its economy for a third time now.
Health officials there say house gatherings are to blame, yet they have continued to put constraints on restaurants. So common sense should tell us that if you won’t let us socialize indoors at restaurants, then people will still get together in homes where no social distance rules are being enforced.
When the commonwealth basically shut down last March, most people were willing to stay at home and not visit with friends. We spent weeks sheltered in place. No one knew at the time when everything shut down that it would be months before we were allowed to really go out.
Still, today, life as we once knew it is nowhere near back to normal. With that being said, people are unwilling to ever return to the level of isolation we all felt last spring. So instead, you see people creating their “quaranteams” — which is essentially code for a bunch of people they will hang out with and ignore all social distance rules in the sanctuary of their homes.
If local officials leave restaurants open and enforce the safety guidelines around wearing masks and stay 6 feet apart, we should have a better chance of fighting this virus and prevent these house gatherings.
Humans are social by nature and asking us to go against the grain of what we are biologically wired to do just won’t work a second time. So if closing restaurants is somehow seen as a solution it won’t work.
Let’s not also forgot the thousands of restaurants that have already closed because of the first shutdown. We must stand up for these businesses and protect them from being destroyed.
Birx, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, nailed it. “We take down our guard with people we know,” she said. She’s right. Mix in a few drinks and logic goes out the door.
Dismantle your “quaranteams” and instead visit one another in safe public places. Everyone wins.
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3dq49bN
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