After reading his comments in the Dec. 11 edition of The Bradford Era, I wholeheartedly agree with state Rep. Martin Causer that the COVID-19 pandemic is putting thousands of people out of work, making it a struggle to put food on their tables.
The plight of the restaurant industry is among the worst and my heart goes out to the owners and, more specifically, to employees in that industry.
If we pay attention to the science, we know that the predominant mode of transmission for the SARS COV 2 virus is the droplet spread. However, aerosol and fomite modes of transmission are certainly plausible, specifically indoors and especially if the ventilation is suboptimal. The SARS COV 2 virus can remain infectious indoors, anywhere from 0.64 hours to 2.64 hours, according to to New England Journal of Medicine.
So, I could be having my dinner in a restaurant and be surrounded by plexiglass while another customer sitting 20 feet away from me, either coughs, sneezes or even is talking loud. And if he happens to be an ASYMPTOMATIC INFECTED person, he will spread the virus into the air — and the virus can certainly drift to my table.
The situation in bars is even more precarious, where people do mingle and talk aloud. This is the unfortunate and unique position the restaurant industry is in. This is exactly why Gov. Tom Wolf is putting emphasis on the restaurant industry.
Rep. Causer’s solution is an emphasis on education and personal responsibility. But, Rep. Causer and politicians sharing many of the same views could also have urged U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to be responsible and not play dirty politics with the COVID-19 relief package.
While the package passed last week and was signed in the 11th hour by President Trump, it could have provided much-needed financial relief — much sooner — to the 333,000 restaurant industry workers in Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, not all the money in the relief package will go to the people who need it most — as was the case with relief legislation passed earlier this year.
I also wish that Rep. Causer would have appealed to the sense of responsibility of our local residents when several dozens of them gathered in the parking lot of Ace Hardware a couple of months ago to show their support for Trump. At least looking at the photograph published in The Era, I did not see any social distancing and not many masks.
We have not witnessed a pandemic of this magnitude in over 100 years and we are learning something new about this virus on an ongoing basis. I think Gov. Wolf is doing the best he can under the circumstances.
(Dr. Anil G. Pradhan practices and lives in Bradford.)
