Travel Junkie
Well-Known Member
It doesn't appear all the California lockdowns did us much good,
It did a lot of good actually.
"California officials estimated that the state’s order — which prohibited nonessential travel; banned outdoor social gatherings; and closed nail and hair salons, museums and outdoor dining — kept as many as 25,000 people from landing in the hospital with a severe case of COVID-19."
"Scientists say that they can’t tease out which part of the order was most effective in turning the tide, but several leading public health experts interviewed by The Times agreed that the outdoor dining ban probably played a key role."
"But epidemiologists said prohibiting outdoor dining signaled to the public that the coronavirus storm was worsening while also eliminating a real risk: If an outdoor White House Rose Garden ceremony announcing a Supreme Court nominee could become a super-spreader event, it could easily happen on a restaurant patio.
While eating outdoors, patrons can’t keep their masks on, guests at the same table aren’t six feet apart, and they could spend more than an hour together — violating three basic tenets of risk reduction. Outdoor dining can be made safer by eating only with members of the same household, but that was often not the case.
Dining outdoors became even more risky as extraordinarily high rates of contagion swept through parts of California and restaurants put up plastic sheeting to protect diners from cool winter winds, blocking the very breezes that scatter virus particles and keep them away from other diners and employees.
The dangers are such that “I’ve never gone to an outdoor dining restaurant since the pandemic began,” said UC Berkeley epidemiologist Dr. John Swartzberg."
California’s outdoor dining ban was controversial. Did it help slow the COVID-19 surge?
Experts say the improving COVID-19 picture in California now is traceable in part to tough measures taken two months ago. Officials estimate that as many as 25,000 severe cases of the disease were prevented.
www.latimes.com