The CDC is claiming a link between dining in restaurants and increased cases of COVID. The New York Times, reporting on Saturday, wrote,
“Federal researchers also found that counties opening restaurants for on-premises dining—indoors or outdoors—saw a rise in daily infections about six weeks later, and an increase in COVID-19 death rates about two months later.”
After admitting the study was not conclusive (“The study does not prove cause and effect”), the article goes on to claim “but the findings square with other research showing that masks prevent infection and that indoor spaces foster the spread of the virus through aerosols, tiny respiratory particles that linger in the air.”
(See our article in this issue, “MASK MANDATES RECEDING?,” which cites four of the dozens of articles with scientific data we’ve published showing mask-wearing is ineffective at slowing the spread of COVID.)
While the CDC has not provided sufficient evidence, its director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, is quoted in the article,
“You have decreases in cases and deaths when you wear masks, and you have increases in cases and deaths when you have in-person restaurant dining. And so, we would advocate for policies, certainly while we’re at this plateau of a high number of cases, that would listen to that public health science.”
The National Restaurant Association, advocating for about one million restaurants and food-related services, called the CDC study “an ill-informed attack on the industry hardest-hit by the pandemic.” The association pointed out the important fact that the CDC report “did not control for factors other than restaurant dining—such as business closures and other policies—that might have contributed to coronavirus infections and deaths.”
TRENDPOST: In addition to strongly advocating restaurants not be reopened, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky stated last Friday that overall, continued vigilance against the coronavirus is required due to recent “upticks.” She failed to mention that in comparison to “upticks” in cases, the continued lockdowns aren’t just causing “upticks” but devastating increases in teenage suicides, child malnutrition, an epidemic of depression issues, and severe economic stress.
Absent from this NYT article is the fact that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo reported data last December, just before he prohibited indoor dining in NYC restaurants, showing restaurants and bars account for a mere 1.4 percent of COVID-19 infection spreading in New York.
