Thanks for posting the link to the article & polling.
I am going to take the polling & conclusions with a grain of salt.
There is a big difference between self-isolating, going out more (perhaps masking up and maintaining physical distance,), and abandoning all precautions.
I think restaurants are thinking they run at razor thin margins, and can’t survive if they don’t fill the place on Friday and Saturday nights, or whatever times are historically their busy times. They have fixed costs.
Though we have seen many examples in the news (eta, in other parts of the country) where people are crowding into bars and restaurants. I’m certainly not ready to go to a crowded restaurant any time soon.
Church is very important to me, too. I’ve mentioned before that I am the current Clerk of Session of my church. Last night the Session voted to postpone all in-person worship services and meetings until July 1 - even though our governor is slowly reopening the state. The vote was unanimous.
I thought it was interesting that several of the Elders wanted to postpone in-person worship until September 1. I thought I was the only super-cautious person there!
Also, our finance committee said that donations are strong - maybe even ahead of a “normal” year. Seems like there are lots of people who love the church and they’re willing to do so from afar.
YMMV
Not directly related to restaurants, but judging from how crowded the gym was this morning on its second day open here in Palm Beach County, I’d say yes.
Gym was more crowded than normal in my opinion, there were many new free weights and machines, and no evidence whatsoever of social distancing other than: 1) more rolls of paper towels and bottles of disinfectant around, 2) water fountains were disabled (boo…), and 3) some of the more closely spaced aerobic machines were alternately covered with yellow tape in order to ensure that people were about 5-7 feet apart while exercising. Practically no one was wearing a mask - certainly fewer than 5% of the members. None had gloves except a few hardcore types who had powerlifting gloves on.
Saw all my old buddies there - it is sort of a meathead gym - none had had any personal experience with COVID-19, no problems with their families either. A few volunteered that the whole crisis “could have been a hoax” - not that there isn’t a dangerous disease, but that the danger has been severely oversold down here.
Two added bonuses. First, upon entering the staff takes your temperature with a no touch thermometer. 97.3 degrees for me. Great, because we do not own a thermometer at home…
Second, many younger workers must still be furloughed down here or WFH. The gym is usually filled with youngish to middle-aged guys (say, 25-55) and hardcore female bodybuilder types, but today there seemed to be whole lot of beautiful young women working out. Certainly made the trip a whole lot more pleasant, lol.
Those images are from a few select bars/restaurants exploited by the media. The vast majority of bars/restaurants will not be close to full capacity anytime soon.
My friends and I who normally go out to dinner every Friday and Saturday night have agreed that we will not be going out to dinner any time soon even if LA county fully opens up restaurants. The eating out experience with table partitions, waiters wearing masks, disposable menu and utensils, enclosed environment, AND the possibility of still getting the virus is just not worth the effort. If my random friends are going to say “no” I’m sure there are many others like us that will wait to frequent bars/restaurants until they have a semblance of “normal” and we have eliminated most, if not all, of the risk of getting and transmitting the virus.
Remember the story of the little boy who cried wolf? Over the past months, we’ve been told so many different and changing things from the number of people who would contract the virus, to the death rate, to the length of the SIP orders, to whether or not to wear masks and on and on that these admonitions are starting to just go in one ear and out the other.
Not just the last few months…we’ve been seeing on a daily basis the CRISIS OF THE DAY headline for a number of years.
I think there is just general crisis fatigue.
re: Post 3201, I don’t know why they say Discord doesn’t have video. It most certainly does. We use it when we are playing Steam games with our kids - they say it works better than Zoom in that context. That said, I don’t know what exactly the chorus is looking for. We have a lounge set up for our family that we can go to any time.
Maybe some landlords are going to have to figure out that they need to charge less rent.
They’re going in one ear and out the other even if all the predictions have come true… and been even worse.
People discounting facts is part of human nature. Doesn’t make the facts wrong.
We see them, but how much of it is because they can and want to make a statement? Will they continue supporting these businesses all the time or will they go back to their pre-covid level of support?
And will they continue doing it IF more folks get the virus, esp when it starts to include people they know IRL? “If” because we don’t really know what will happen yet - the future is always theoretical to an extent, though obviously, many people predict more will get it. I think everyone knows if it wanes away things will get back to normal, but how likely is that? No one knows. It’s all new.
Thus, our personal watch and see vs going out. Those going out now can fill in the coffers for us. We used to go out often. We currently do take out roughly 3 meals per week. With opening, we’re reducing take out to probably none as we watch and wait. If things get worse, we don’t want to be out there at all.
Our church upsets me more than anything. They are resuming Sunday, with a new minister. I have contacted him to let him know my feelings, as well as our district office. The district office responded by telling me that once they gave the signal to resume, several churches admitted they had been meeting all along.
Volunteer activities, in the community, have also commenced.
I told my husband to hold off sending $. It may be time for a new church. It’s a great time to look for a new church, with all the online services.
Easy solution. Don’t turn on the news. Scan headlines. Get off CC. Get a life, covid-restricted but still a life.
My mom is in Mississippi and, while she’s not ready to go out to a restaurant for a while, she’s seeing packed restaurants in her area (suburb of Jackson). It’s mainly the fast casual style restaurants, Panera-equivalent. And I see facebook posts of relatives in MS, out to dinner with friends.
It’s a no-win situation for the restaurants, for sure, though. Especially here in the Boston area, where the virus is still so active.
The science behind COVID-19 and viruses:
https://scienceexchange.caltech.edu/topics/covid-19-coronavirus-sars-cov-2
It’s amazing that this surprises so many humans. When something is new, it’s new. By definition not much is known about it and folks learn more each day. Best guesses are what we have to go on. When those guesses turn out not to be correct, modifying them is a good idea.
2+2=4 is not the situation we’re dealing with here.
I recall reading one reporter’s take on it all - probably in our local paper - noting that those who survive this virus will be those who can adapt to new ways of doing things. Those insisting on keeping things normal are those most likely to not have things go well for them. He was referring to economics (businesses and personal) as well as the disease.
He also noted that it’s been the same way throughout human history across many topics (medical being a biggie). One would think more humans would learn from it, but no, so many don’t.
I’m not going to wring my hands about how many people will go back to restaurants and how many businesses will fail - start the gradual relaxation of restrictions and see what happens. Kind of like starting a company - you can’t know exactly how things will go, so you get something out their and then adapt as you see demand building.
Hmm, to me, almost 91,000 dead (in the United States) equates to “not a hoax.” But YMMV.
Maine just announced that gyms will NOT be allowed to open on June 1 as previously announced. They referenced the episode in South Korea as a factor in the decision. I think it’s wise.
Did you think it was a hoax, @rosered55? Can you point to any post on this thread where anyone said the virus was a hoax? Or are you just assuming any one who disagrees with you must think it is a hoax?