Solving the Coronavirus threat as applied to our restaurant industry
It is absolutely stunning that our governments’ answer to our nation’s Restaurant industry, as applied to the Coronavirus, is to deal it a deadly blown under the rubric “social distancing”. The fact is, common sense dictates otherwise.
As we know, there are identifiable groups which are most susceptible to the virus:
Updated 4/9/2020: A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on U.S. hospitalizations for COVID-19 1
published on April 8 finds that 89.3% of 1,482 hospitalized patients had one or more underlying conditions. The most common were hypertension (49.7%), followed by obesity, chronic metabolic disease (such as diabetes ), chronic lung disease (including asthma) and cardiovascular disease. Patients 50 and older comprised 74.% of cases, and 54.4% were men. The report also confirms that African-Americans are much more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19: 33% were Black, even though the percentage of Blacks in the geographical areas was only 18%. (Although cancer was not covered in this report, other research has found that people with cancer are at greater risk for catching the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. So are people with HIV . For continuing coverage of coronavirus and cancer, click here ; for coronavirus and HIV, click here .)
So, the question is, how to deal with the virus as applied to our nation’s restaurant industry, with the least economic damage to the industry?
Let us begin by stressing there are countless threats to one’s safety every day one leaves their home to conduct their daily activities, and these threats are in addition to those which are self-inflicted such as smoking, drinking, promiscuous sex, etc. In countless ways, the vast majority of individuals conduct their daily lives in consideration of known threats. Keep in mind no one is forced to go to a restaurant to have dinner. It is a choice one makes in a freedom loving society. And those most susceptible to the virus ought to be reminded, by a caring government, to their susceptibility to the virus, which can be easily contracted in a normal restaurant setting. Forewarned, is forearmed.
Of course, in dealing with this virus, our free market, free enterprise system offers a wonderful opportunity . . . restaurants which specifically cater to those terrified by the virus, and decide to provide to their customers a “social distancing” environment which, of course, ought to be added to one’s bill.
By contrast, our government’s closing down of America’s restaurant industry, as it has done, is not only absurd, stupid, and a crippling blow to America’s economy, it is an attack on our free market, free enterprise system. As previously stated, no one is forced to go to a restaurant.
The bottom line is, the most effective thing in a free market, free enterprise system which “government” can do, is to educate the populace to the dangers of the virus and those most susceptible so they may conduct their daily activities accordingly, which includes patronizing a local restaurant, and the possible danger involved.
I, for one, have not had so much as a cold in over thirty years. Perhaps that is because I am blessed with good genes, live a healthy life style, have always been cautious about my surroundings, and practice additional precautions during the flu season ___ precautions I learned in grade school over seven decades ago, which included washing one’s hands and avoiding those with obvious respiratory conditions.
Let us end the absurd closedown of our nation’s restaurant industry and use common sense solutions to the Coronavirus threat.
JWK
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. ___ Benjamin Franklin, 1755
A common sense approach to the Coronavirus
A common sense approach to the Coronavirus.
If those most vulnerable to the deadly effects of the Coronavirus self-regulated and stayed at home until herd immunity took place, and an effective treatment(s) was developed, would this not be a common sense approach as opposed to the suicidal one now in effect?
JWK
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. ___ Benjamin Franklin, 1755