Just because indoor meals are already available in the Bay Area, you shouldn’t necessarily be doing it yet – even if you are vaccinated, according to infectious disease experts.
Since the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are 95% effective, experts agree that a fully vaccinated person is unlikely to become ill from indoor meals, but they warn that it may not be worth taking the risk now.
Although one said the practice should be suitable for younger vaccinees, he cautioned that an older individual with pre-existing health problems should be more careful. Another expert said that dining indoors is not recommended for anyone because there are still many viruses in the community – and more contagious variants are spreading. However, the situation may improve in a few weeks.
Without any official guidance from the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it becomes a personal decision.
“It depends on who you are and what your risk tolerance is,” said George Rutherford, an infectious disease specialist at UCSF.
The CDC released new guidelines on Monday, saying that vaccinated people can safely meet with other vaccinated people indoors without a mask, although the agency has not approached restaurants. The challenge there is that it is impossible to know whether workers or diners have also been fully vaccinated. It is not yet known whether a vaccinated person can carry the virus, potentially infecting other people, despite not feeling sick.
“Until we have an answer to that question with much more data, I think it is prudent to assume that it is possible,” said John Swartzberg, an infectious disease specialist at UC Berkeley. A more transmissible strain is projected to become dominant by the end of March, which could lead to “an over-spreading event” if many people in a restaurant are not vaccinated, he added.
For Rutherford, dining indoors depends on personal risk factors, such as age and pre-existing health conditions. That’s because the chances of getting sick when fully vaccinated are small, but not non-existent.
The density of the restaurant is also very important, he said. Although San Francisco restaurants are required to operate at 25% capacity with tables spaced at least 6 feet apart, there is little enforcement of the rules unless customers report business to the health department. If two tables are next to each other, this could put even a fully vaccinated person at risk, he said.
Since meals at home are not an essential activity, Stanford University infectious disease specialist Robert Siegel recommends continuing with outdoor meals and take-out food – or waiting until more people are vaccinated, too.
“We got to the point where we think the red level means safe. But look at the definition, ”he said. (Red layer means that the virus is spreading “substantially.”) “If you want to be completely safe, you shouldn’t take off your mask.”
Coronavirus case counts are too high in California for Swartzberg to feel good about dining at a restaurant – the numbers are similar to last summer, a time when few considered indoor meals to be safe. Although Swartzberg, who is fully vaccinated and in his 70s, feels confident he won’t die of coronavirus, he knows there is a small chance of getting sick – and he prefers not to run the risk of suffering a flu-like case. for a gastronomic experience.
From the point of view of public health, he is also concerned with the multiple most contagious variants that have already been detected in the state. He pointed to the recent CDC study linking dining in restaurants to outbreaks of coronavirus cases, and he fears there may be a fourth outbreak on the way. Ideally, people should postpone meals indoors for another four to six weeks, he said.
“It’s like there is a storm off the coast of California and we don’t know if it is going to fall or not,” he said. “We kept playing that same record indefinitely: we went through a wave, we became very careful with social detachment and masking, and download and watch the numbers drop. But each time after a wave, we relax very early. “
Janelle Bitker is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @janellebitker