The Chief Minister has defended the decision to soon allow up to ten people from different households to sit at a table in a hospitality venue, but not let them do the same in someone's home.
Cafes, restaurants and pubs that serve food can open from Monday 22 February, but rules on household mixing will remain the same..Senator John Le Fondre says the medical advice is that uncontrolled mixing in households remains risky.
"They're going to do temperature checks when you go in, there is the normal contact tracing side, there is the fact it is time-limited (two and a half hours), it's seated, it's spaced, and therefore your behaviour will be relatively controlled.
"The risk is lower than, for the sake of argument, a group of people in a house where you're there for an unlimited amount of time, you might relax, you might start hugging and you might just get a lot closer.
That is why in Guernsey, they have "bubbles" where you link, initially with just one other household, and as numbers fall, the bubbles can grow gradually. It worked well for them in the first lockdown, and they are starting it again in a very limited way (as before) in the second lockdown.
Essentially a bubble of two households means they are treated as one for the purpose of examining virus transmission. It is highly restricted, and a lot safer than the restaurant opening where if staff in a kitchen get Covid, the risks of transmission to customers are proportionally far higher.
I'd like to know if anyone who makes these rules about restaurants - and two metre seating - has any idea what two metres looks like.
A three seater sofa is normally around 2 metres. That means you'd have to be seated off each end of the sofa to be two metres distance.
The length of a double bed is around 2 metres.
And this is what it looks like with a table.
And remember tables need to be that distance apart.
And also remember shared toilets!
Large venues - like the Royal Yacht - will do well, but smaller restaurants - like Mark Jordan's will barely be able to open.
A few other facts.
If there is a fan or current generated in a closed space such as a restaurant, particles will also travel farther. This was shown in a paper from China: People in a restaurant downwind of an infected person became infected even though the distance was greater than 2 metres. In this cold weather, do restaurants have heating? Is this mentioned in the guidelines. No! And yet this is a known scientific fact from studies of Covid transmission.
If servers wear masks, that will afford a layer of protection, but customers eating and talking could still spread the virus. One way to mitigate that risk in this imperfect situation, at least from a public health point of view, would be to have tables surrounded by protective barriers, such as plexiglass or screens, or put tables in separate rooms with doors that can be closed.
And finally...
Recently advice has been given by the Health Minister to keep masks on in town as going in and out of shops and taking off masks when outside and then putting them on again increases the risk of contamination by touching the mask. However, in restaurants, you are now being told to put on masks when not eating or drinking, take them off to eat or drink, and put them on again between courses.
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