Is Indoor Dining Opening too Soon?

By Yehudit Garmaise

     You really can’t please everybody.

     Ever since the moment Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo indefinitely banned indoor dining in New York City on Dec. 11 because of high COVID rates, New Yorkers have been grumbling. 

      For nearly two months, struggling restauranteurs have complained and some have even sued the governor, and reporters have asked the governor at nearly every press conference when restaurants, perhaps could open at 25% or even 50% capacity, as the suburbs enjoy.

   Finally, to the delight on many, on Jan. 29, the governor announced that the holiday COVID surge had passed, COVID positivity rates are down, and therefore, he is reopening New York City’s indoor dining on Feb. 14 at 25% maximum capacity. 

   But now that Gov. Cuomo has told New Yorkers to “make reservations for Valentine’s Day,” which is Feb. 14, some reporters are saying that it might be too soon because average per-capita case counts in New York City were 64% higher now than when he first announced a ban on indoor dining almost two months ago.

  Although average per-capita case counts are high, the governor explained that since December, the rate at which people are infecting each other, which is known as Rt, currently measures at less than 1, which means each infectious person is infecting less than one other person. 

    Gov. Cuomo added that his decision to re-open any part of the economy is based not just on the number of new cases per-capita and the rate at which people are infecting each other, but he also considers hospitalization and COVID positivity rates.

   Although many factors are considered as officials decide what to reopen and when, Gareth Rhodes, a deputy superintendent at the state Department of Financial Services and a member of the governor’s COVID-19 task force, said that the most significant factor in the equation is the upward or downward trend of all the numbers.

   The important metrics are not where the numbers are, but where they are headed, and that trends are all headed downward, both across the state and in the city, Rhodes told the New York Times.

    Despite reassurances from Gov. Cuomo and Rhodes that 25% capacity and other restrictions can deem indoor dining safe, now the New York Times is citing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control as placing “on-site dining with capacity limits in the “higher risk” category for coronavirus transmission, with the highest risk being indoor dining without precautions.”

   No one said you had to eat out, just that you now could, if you wanted to.