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Should restaurants/bars be closed?

Should restaurants/bars be closed?

  • Yes

    Votes: 29 22.8%
  • No

    Votes: 98 77.2%

  • Total voters
    127
People tend to be okay with shutting down things they don't use or feel to be necessary,.. bars and restaurants have become the whipping boys for this kind of thinking...
Unfortunately the shut it down if it doesn't directly effect me group fail to see an important thing. Job losses and businesses closing effects everybody.
 
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Are there places that are not following distancing requirements? Every place I have been in has been, and still is, doing so. (Note - I am not really a "bar" visitor, so my experience would be regular restaurants and bar/grills.)

Also, my understanding is that whatever additional COVID cases we are seeing are not tracing back to restaurants. If that is so, then it would really be silly to shut down something that isn't leading to infections.

The dude that runs Hawkeye Heaven has a bar in Altoona and posted a video on FB of the people at the game watch last weekend doing the wave after the 1st quarter. Place was jam packed with people and no masks.

If you're going to try and skirt the current mandates in place, it's probably not best to plaster a video of you violating the mandates for all to see on the internet.

Guy isn't very bright.
 
Are some restaurants back to full capacity? I haven't been to one that still doesn't have tables 6 ft apart and are at 50% capacity.

Places that I've seen just seem to vary tremendously. Some have been good at spreading out their customers, others haven't been. Personally, I'd like to see health inspector/police spot-check restaurants and bars on occasion to make sure.

I would also like to see servers do better at wearing masks. Some are, some aren't and some that are also aren't wearing them correctly.
 
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At "bars" and "weddings".
Literally happened at the school my sister works at in WI.
Young teacher went to a wedding where no one wore masks. Came back positive, and over a dozen others at that school had to quarantine for 2 weeks in early October.

Literally, a week after returning from quarantine, another case, so 2 more weeks now.
Sooner or later, you run out of teachers.

Why did the other teachers have to quarantine because of potential exposure? How does a teacher have direct, prolonged contact with other teachers? Don't they just walk from the parking lot and straight into their classroom? Have they not closed the teachers' lounge? Are they forcing them to sit in meetings together with no masks?
 
Why did the other teachers have to quarantine because of potential exposure? How does a teacher have direct, prolonged contact with other teachers? Don't they just walk from the parking lot and straight into their classroom? Have they not closed the teachers' lounge? Are they forcing them to sit in meetings together with no masks?

How about the supply room, lunch monitoring, recess, the hallways in between classes, etc? Or teachers that have student teachers (no idea how that's working this fall), teaching assistants, etc.? You're kidding yourself if you think teachers can walk straight into their classrooms and not have to leave until the end of the day.

Hopefully, teachers are doing the best they can to keep all that to a minimum, but there's no way they can manage to go 10 hours w/o being in close proximity to other teachers.
 
How about the supply room, lunch monitoring, recess, the hallways in between classes, etc? Or teachers that have student teachers (no idea how that's working this fall), teaching assistants, etc.? You're kidding yourself if you think teachers can walk straight into their classrooms and not have to leave until the end of the day.

Hopefully, teachers are doing the best they can to keep all that to a minimum, but there's no way they can manage to go 10 hours w/o being in close proximity to other teachers.

Yep

And the whole scenario, because ONE 20-something teacher had to go to her friend's WI wedding, where there was no distancing and no masks worn.

WI no longer has enough contact tracers to track case-exposures: they are literally asking people to call and tell people/venues themselves. Which will only make it worse.

Those attitudes are literally why WI is such a mess right now. And where Iowa is headed.

As I'd noted in another thread: iOS and Android have contract tracing functions built into the OS's, which many states' health departments have helped to activate. Neither Iowa or Wisconsin have done this.
 
Depends on the location, probably.

I haven’t eaten inside a restaurant in nearly 8 months. However, I will go inside a restaurant to get something to go without concern.

My entire anti-COVID strategy has been to move around and not stay in one place too long, especially indoors. I miss going out to eat, but I’m not going to plant myself in one spot for an hour. So it’s takeout or bust, regardless of what the rules are for dine-in.

And that's the way it should be. Everyone has to make their own decision.
 
Agreed. The problem is, many restaurants are not following these guidelines. If the local authorities got mid evil on their asses, that would help

WOB? Deliberate, perhaps. If not, a real classic. :)

Also, FWIW, every restaurant that I have been in, save one in a rural county with very few cases in southern Iowa, has precautions in place. Where would you say the "many" restaurants are located?
 
How about the supply room, lunch monitoring, recess, the hallways in between classes, etc? Or teachers that have student teachers (no idea how that's working this fall), teaching assistants, etc.? You're kidding yourself if you think teachers can walk straight into their classrooms and not have to leave until the end of the day.

Hopefully, teachers are doing the best they can to keep all that to a minimum, but there's no way they can manage to go 10 hours w/o being in close proximity to other teachers.

FWIW, the school where my wife teaches restructured all manner of things to greatly reduce, pretty much eliminate, contact between classes and other teachers. There is very little adult to adult interaction. Which actually creates some other challenges, but does greatly decrease the potential for one teacher to infect another teacher, etc.
 
FWIW, the school where my wife teaches restructured all manner of things to greatly reduce, pretty much eliminate, contact between classes and other teachers. There is very little adult to adult interaction. Which actually creates some other challenges, but does greatly decrease the potential for one teacher to infect another teacher, etc.

Glad to hear that. Only caveat is that depends greatly on the school/admin quality.
 
WOB? Deliberate, perhaps. If not, a real classic. :)

Also, FWIW, every restaurant that I have been in, save one in a rural county with very few cases in southern Iowa, has precautions in place. Where would you say the "many" restaurants are located?

Arizona. One of them is right up the street from me
 
I have had one or more toddlers pretty much continuously since 2008, so I haven’t changed a thing about my restaurant and bar patronage.
 
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Arizona. One of them is right up the street from me

OK, I haven't been in Arizona lately, so I have no idea what is going on down there. Here in CR/IC area though...it seems that compliance with social distancing in regular restaurants is very high from what I see and know of. FWIW.
 
Because the only place college students drink or spread covid is bars. Go back to your cave. We'll signal you when the world is safe for your sorry ass again.

If you haven't died from COVID while you're out LIVING YOUR LIFE, MAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNN
 
They should be allowed to be open but the measures in place to minimize potential spread should be enforced and if they don't, hammer them shut on a case by case basis. I won't be going into a restaurant or bar anytime soon except for carry out, but if others want to risk it, I'm OK with that.
 
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I went into a restaurant mid-week. It was just us and one other family in the entire place the whole time we were there. I wasn't concerned at all.
We need to help these places stay open until this passes or there won't be anything to come back to.
 
Why did the other teachers have to quarantine because of potential exposure? How does a teacher have direct, prolonged contact with other teachers? Don't they just walk from the parking lot and straight into their classroom? Have they not closed the teachers' lounge? Are they forcing them to sit in meetings together with no masks?

My school's policy is no more than 15 minutes within 6 feet of each other. We do all our meetings on ZOOM or Teams. My room is set up so students are never within 6 feet of each other, and everyone wears masks. So far, we've had some students come in contact, but non have had positives, and no quarantines so far. Knock on wood.
 
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No. In may cases, no.

This is another illustration of ignorance.

Yep

When operational costs/overhead run more than what you can take in at 25% seating capacity, it makes more sense to stay closed, until you CAN open at 50% or higher capacity.
 
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Yep

When operational costs/overhead run more than what you can take in at 25% seating capacity, it makes more sense to stay closed, until you CAN open at 50% or higher capacity.
There are several on here who have no idea about even the most rudimentary factors in running a business.
 
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Its not a yes or no question. Bars yes unless there is seating and everyone is seated to be served/consume. Restaurant tables should be spaced and capacity limited. Masks when not seated.
 
Can we get a cross check of those that said No but are blaming Trump for not shutting down the country in other threads?
 
The problems with bars and restaurants is that are several reports of 'super spreader' events happening indoors even with people spaced out more than 6 feet. This goes back to the dreaded aerosol/droplet debate, but without good ventilation to the outdoors, this can spread beyond 6 feet. If indoors for a long period of time with other people without masks, 6 feet isn't enough to prevent outbreaks.
Here are 2 examples of such outbreaks. The first link is from a restaurant where it appears the virus was transmitted via air currents from air conditioners. The second example (the tweet) is from a recent outbreak in a bus.

Restaurant Outbreak

 
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The problems with bars and restaurants is that are several reports of 'super spreader' events happening indoors even with people spaced out more than 6 feet. This goes back to the dreaded aerosol/droplet debate, but without good ventilation to the outdoors, this can spread beyond 6 feet. If indoors for a long period of time with other people without masks, 6 feet isn't enough to prevent outbreaks.

Restaurant Outbreak

I would not enter a bar or restaurant that was the size/shape of a bus.
 
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I would not enter a bar or restaurant that was the size/shape of a bus.

Sorry, my post was confusing and I edited it. There were two examples there, a restaurant outbreak and a separate bus outbreak. The restaurant outbreak is the link above the bus outbreak. The risk all depends on air flow patterns and ventilation.

What is frustrating is that the risk also depends on the likelihood of someone in the restaurant actually having COVID. The worse the outbreak gets, the more likely that is.
 
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