[burger]

All this says is that there is an association of people eating in person at restaurants (indoor or outdoor) with increased cases of (other) people in the area.  3 weeks is long enough for the dining to be contemporaneous with the infection that lead to a case a week or more later.

It doesn't indicate that even one person got sick from eating out.  It doesn't indicate that the food supply isn't perfectly safe.  Nor does it prove the opposite.

I take that dining at a restaurant is a proxy for these:

  1) decreased concern by the people about the virus
  2) how much has the area opened up
  3) the affluence of the area to spend money on eating out
  4) getting out of the house (at least to pick up food)

They apparently included take-out meals as eating out, but with a stronger association for COVID cases with eating at the restaurant.  Presumably they can't directly tell whether people ate indoors or outdoors.  (But they could tell if they correlated the location with local regulations.)

It would have been interesting if they could have teased out whether the meals were single household or multi household (in which case this would have been a proxy for unmasked association with another household).

I agree that the evidence on restaurants is not 100% compelling.  But we really can't wait for a definitive study of covid-19 spread in restaurants.  Not only would shutting down restaurants and bars eliminate any spread of the virus in those places, but it would also send a clear signal that we have a real problem:
[tweet]https://twitter.com/JakeAnbinder/status/1276558598802472960[/tweet]
It's time for the state to start sending the right signals.

[burger]

All this says is that there is an association of people eating in person at restaurants (indoor or outdoor) with increased cases of (other) people in the area.  3 weeks is long enough for the dining to be contemporaneous with the infection that lead to a case a week or more later.

It doesn't indicate that even one person got sick from eating out.  It doesn't indicate that the food supply isn't perfectly safe.  Nor does it prove the opposite.

I take that dining at a restaurant is a proxy for these:

  1) decreased concern by the people about the virus
  2) how much has the area opened up
  3) the affluence of the area to spend money on eating out
  4) getting out of the house (at least to pick up food)

They apparently included take-out meals as eating out, but with a stronger association for COVID cases with eating at the restaurant.  Presumably they can't directly tell whether people ate indoors or outdoors.  (But they could tell if they correlated the location with local regulations.)

It would have been interesting if they could have teased out whether the meals were single household or multi household (in which case this would have been a proxy for unmasked association with another household).

I agree that the evidence on restaurants is not 100% compelling.  But we really can't wait for a definitive study of covid-19 spread in restaurants.  Not only would shutting down restaurants and bars eliminate any spread of the virus in those places, but it would also send a clear signal that we have a real problem:
[tweet]https://twitter.com/JakeAnbinder/status/1276558598802472960[/tweet]
It's time for the state to start sending the right signals.