Around the country, we are witnessing a surge of new cases in areas that sprinted to reopen their bars and restaurants. Just two weeks after reopening dining rooms, there is reason to fear that Allegheny County could be on the precipice of its own. We’ve watched the reopening experiences of restaurants and bars around the country and around the world. We’ve also done an independent analysis of the data that we’ve seen. And based on those findings, at the Independent, Hidden Harbor, and Lorelei, we have reached the conclusion that offering indoor dining and drinking is presently unsafe for our guests, our staff, and the community at large. On the other hand, we believe that outdoor seating with six feet distancing between tables is safe for the staff serving those tables and will effectively prevent the transmission of the virus between guests of different groups. Our conclusions are based on the following.
Over the last six months, as researchers have gained a better understanding of the pathology of transmission, there are several conclusions that have become generally accepted.
First, the spread of the virus via fomites (a fancy word for transmission by touching inanimate objects) is considerably lower than anyone initially expected. Washing your hands is effective -- but fomites, especially in outdoor settings with ultraviolet light exposure, aren't particularly good at preserving enough virus to infect another person.
Second, because that the virus primarily spreads through respiratory droplets, the chances of transmission increase or decrease based on two variables: the amount of total viral load in a given volume of air and the time that an uninfected person is exposed to that air. As such, the virus spreads most easily in indoor, poorly ventilated environments with cooler temperatures (where droplets have the capacity to saturate the air, creating a dense and infectious viral load). In indoor settings, if there is not enough air exchange per person (one study suggested that it would have to be 20L per person per second, which is about twice what most commercial building codes require), the viral load in the air will build over time and thus the time necessary for exposure to result in infection will drop. The increasing viral load over time in poorly ventilated settings negates the ability to socially distance indoors, as the air can become saturated with the virus over time.
Third, in any environment, but particularly indoors, masks are helpful in lowering the risk of transmission, as they lower the overall number of respiratory droplets that go into the air.
Fourth, and most importantly for the purposes of our planning, the virus is actually very difficult to transmit in most outdoor settings, provided that people practice social distancing. Minor, even imperceivable shifts of air current that exist naturally outdoors make it incredibly difficult for a current of air carrying droplets from one person to reach another person if they are six feet away. Even to the extent that some droplets from the infected person make their way to the other person, so few do that it requires a long period of exposure to reach the total amount of viral load that would get the other person sick.
This point is illustrated not just by various experiments testing air samples in various conditions, but also by contact tracing of known cases. In a contact tracing study in China of over 3,000 incidences of transmission, only one of those transmissions occurred outdoors, and that transmission occurred where two acquaintances spoke to each other for a prolonged period of time in a close face-to-face setting without masks.
Based on the foregoing, we are comfortable offering and expanding our outdoor seating. We are comfortable that the relatively short time periods that servers will be spending table side, that our servers’ use of masks when standing table side, and that the six-foot separation between tables will limit our servers’ exposure to an infected person (and vice versa) below the threshold necessary for transmission and will similarly limit our guests’ exposure to other parties from who they are separated by six feet. Additionally, by maintaining mostly daylight hours, UV exposure from natural light will mitigate possible fomite transmission and may even mitigate the amount of viable virions on the surface of respiratory droplets.
We, however, do not believe that we can safely open for indoor dining and drinking until further notice. The harsh reality is that COVID-19 spreads effectively in indoor environments, and the two ways in which we are able to mitigate the risks of indoor transmission — enforcing universal masking and limiting the time of a person’s exposure to contaminated air — don’t work for restaurants. It’s hard to wear a mask when you’re eating and drinking. Asking guests to comply would be difficult and inhospitable. Similarly, limiting our guests’ time indoors would be difficult. Our outdoor reservations are capped at 90 minutes, however, we believe that duration is too long to risk indoor exposure.
In addition, we believe that the “green phase” rules that Pennsylvania has promulgated for restaurants does little to help mitigate the risks of indoor dining. For the most part, it focuses on sanitization to reduce transmission by shared surfaces. That’s certainly a nice thought, as cleaning is something within the restaurant or bar’s control. But it misses the generally held consensus that the primary way in which COVID-19 is spread is via suspended respiratory droplets, some of which may remain in the air for extended durations of time. As such, one cannot entirely mitigate this risk by six feet spacing between parties, as the air in the room as a whole will saturate over time — the longer an infected person is in the room, and the longer that you stay in the room with them, the more likely that they will create an environment from which your prolonged exposure may result in infection.
While cases in Allegheny County are low compared to places in which there are current outbreaks, we recognize that every single case represents a spark. Indoor dining rooms and other confined spaces are the tinder in which we have to pray those sparks do not land, and, until we have better prophylactic measures, a vaccine, a viable cure, or a tested scientific solution (perhaps a better understanding of how ventilation can be used to make indoor environments safe), we do not want to risk adding to that tinder.
In the meantime, we will continue to offer outdoor seating and food and drinks to-go, focusing on solutions that we believe are safe for ourselves and our community.
With Love,
Pete
