Maryland's 'let them eat outdoors' governor is woefully misinformed about the risk.
| COMMENTARY
By BALTIMORE SUN EDITORIAL BOARD
BALTIMORE SUN |
DEC 11, 2020 AT 12:54 PM
'Gov. Larry Hogan took a thoroughly unhelpful swipe at local jurisdictions, including Baltimore City and Anne Arundel County, that have recently taken the difficult step of closing restaurant table service — indoor and outdoor — to slow the spread of the coronavirus. In making such moves, local leaders noted Wednesday that it would be better for public health if statewide actions were taken, rather than piecemeal, regional ones. To that, Mr. Hogan responded Thursday by saying: “We’re not going to be dictated to — what we should do — based on what one or two other people decided to do.”
By the governor’s reckoning, the outdoor restrictions aren’t helpful. And during a news conference, he tossed around the idea that they weren’t science based, as if Mayor Brandon Scott and County Executive Steuart Pittman got a political boost from severely hampering an industry already reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic. “I don’t know where that decision came from,” Mr. Hogan told reporters, “because in all of our hundreds of discussions with all the top public health doctors and researchers and experts they told us in the very beginning that outdoor dining is safe, that outdoors is better than indoors. It doesn’t compute with most of — any of — the advice we’ve gotten from anywhere.”
Maryland Gov. Hogan holds off on new coronavirus restrictions, defends outdoor dining as some counties tighten guidelines »
First, he’s wrong. It takes only a glance at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website to find directives that express concerns about all forms of unmasked social gathering, which is what outdoor dining represents. That’s not “safe.” Outdoor dining is surely better than indoor dining, where ventilation is a greater problem, but that hardly makes outdoor dining risk-free, as health officers in both the city and Anne Arundel County have pointed out to anyone willing to listen. Secondly, it only requires the briefest of strolls from the State House in Annapolis to see how December outdoor dining often isn’t outdoors at all. For many restaurants, it has evolved into meals served in heated tents, veritable plastic bubbles, that offer an experience strikingly similar to indoor dining. We get that it’s tough to dress for dinner in 40-degree temperatures with subfreezing wind chills, which most outdoor heaters are no match for, but tents that restrict airflow are no solution. >>>
https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-1214-hogan-outdoor-seating-20201211-oq6tymroifdtxpo574nivbb2hm-story.html?
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