On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln spoke to an exhausted nation from the Pennsylvania battlefield where it saw its bloodiest single conflict. As the Civil War continued to ravage the nation, he distilled into ten perfect sentences why the Union, faced with so much suffering and death, must bolster its resolve to finish the war to honor the memory of those who had died.
“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ...”
Two weeks ago, Governor Wolf announced that on April 4, Easter Sunday, he would take steps to relax restrictions on indoor gatherings and restaurants, most notably allowing restaurants to resume bar service and to increase to 75% indoor capacity. In a press release, the Governor’s office justified this easing of restrictions, stating that “COVID-19 cases have declined and vaccination rates are climbing.”
The loosening of these restrictions is premature. It will cause Pennsylvania to suffer a higher death toll than it would if we kept restrictions in place a little longer. It threatens to undo the promise of our vaccines, which may not be as effective against rapidly spreading variants. Finally, it threatens to render moot the sacrifices we all made in the last year, as we maintained social distancing to buy our scientists time to develop those vaccines. As cases begin to rise again both nationally and in Pennsylvania, and as we watch a fourth wave of COVID-19 sweep across Europe with too-little-too-late lockdowns once more in its wake, now is the time for Governor Wolf to reconsider his order and to put the health of Pennsylvanians before the demands of businesses.
I understand the urge to want this to be over. At our restaurants, we want to reopen our dining rooms and bars again too, and we even believe that we can safely do so soon. But next week is objectively and abjectly too soon.
While the perception that the pace of the vaccinations has accelerated is correct, the roll out is not keeping pace with the similarly accelerating spread of the virus. Worse yet, if we don’t get things under control soon, the vaccines may lose the ability to get ahead of the pace of the virus’ more easily transmissible variants. Loosening restrictions now with the hope that the increasing number of vaccinations will be enough to prevent an exponential increase in new cases is a lot like bungee jumping from a bridge without measuring the length of your cord. If you’re going to take the leap, you better be sure that the bungee will stop your fall before you hit the ground. With unanswered questions regarding how quickly we can achieve herd immunity and regarding the efficacy of the vaccinations on the variants, we can’t know how effective our vaccination strategy actually is, and we shouldn’t use it as an excuse to lower our other defenses until we do.
Moreover, the grim reality is that, while the pace of vaccinations is improving, we are still far from having enough needles in arms to see the effects of herd immunity. According to data compiled by the New York Times, only 30% of Pennsylvanians have had one shot, with a mere 15% having been fully vaccinated. And if your argument is that the most vulnerable have already been vaccinated, allowing the rest of us to take our chances, please know that, in Allegheny County, only 39% of residents over 65 are fully vaccinated. The truth is that while there’s good reason for optimism, we’re just not there yet, folks. And we won’t be there by April 4th either.
And then there are the inequities of our vaccination roll out and the impact on those who must bear them. That Governor Wolf would open restaurants and bars before their workers have been made fully eligible for a vaccination (and without their having be given a reasonable period of time to actually get one) is unconscionable. That the white and wealthy are getting vaccinated more quickly than more vulnerable socioeconomic groups is deeply unjust. That we would allow the many of those vulnerable persons who also work in the service industry to return to work in indoor dining to cater to the needs of the wealthier without first ensuring their opportunity to get vaccinated is abhorrent. And even if we could fix those inequities today, April 4th would still be too soon to open. If every restaurant worker could get their first shot this afternoon, they will not be fully vaccinated for another 5-6 weeks (3 to 4 weeks to get dose two of Pfizer or Moderna, and two weeks after dose two to gain the full effects of immunization). I would ask Governor Wolf to agree that, at an absolute minimum, the workforce of restaurants should not be caused to bear the high risks posed by indoor dining without having themselves first been fully vaccinated. He ought to revisit the effective date of his order and choose a date in accordance with that principle.
I’m not saying that we can never open indoor restaurants and bars again. At the Independent, we absolutely intend to open our own at some point this summer. Nor am I suggesting that we have to wait for Coronavirus to be completely eradicated before we can dine safely indoors. It is more and more likely that eradication is a goal that will never be attained. But with the help of vaccines and testing, we can control it, and we can and will go back to normal lives (and, yes, that includes sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, without masks at a bar).
But the job isn’t done for us quite yet, just like it wasn’t done for the Union in November of 1863. And, just like the Union, if we give up prematurely, we run the risk of allowing our own dead to have died in vain. We owe it to ourselves to see this struggle through. We owe it to the sons and daughters who went a year without seeing their parents, some of whom they would never see again. We owe it to the grandparents who went a year without hugging their grandchildren. We owe it to the doctors, nurses, and first responders who risked or gave their lives to help the sick. Mostly, we owe it to the more than 548,000 Americans who have died from this terrible virus (a number that is coming frighteningly close to the 620,000 Americans who perished in the Civil War). We owe it to their memories to resolve that we will last a few more months until we can reopen bars and restaurants safely and in good conscience.
