Shutdown of inside dining not justified by the data

I read with interest your article on the Rapid Response inspections New Mexico is conducting with respect to business employees suspected of having COVID-19 (I had read the same data you did — on the NM Environment Department website). It was a good article. But, despite what it notes about Rapid Response inspections at restaurants, it in no way gives support to the governor’s order to shut down indoor dining.

First, the Rapid Responses are about employees in businesses, not customers. The fact employees at restaurants are infected (quite likely due to contacts elsewhere) provides no evidence about transmissions between restaurant customers (such potential transmissions being the reason the governor shut down indoor dining — apparently, she has no data on customer-to-customer transmission or, if she does, it doesn’t favor her actions; otherwise I’m sure we would have heard it).

Second, restaurant employees make up about 11% of the NM workforce (according to the National Restaurant Association), so the fact that 15% of the inspections by Rapid Response teams are to restaurants is not surprising. Then I note that about half of the restaurants’ Rapid Responses so far are to fast food places (mostly national chains), not comparable at all to traditional dine-in restaurants. Of the other half, about half of those are national chains. So our local, traditional restaurants are doing pretty good. But, once again, the governor disfavors local businesses, shutting down their indoor dining while the data she cites (the Rapid Responses) indicates national companies are mostly the problem.

The ban on indoor dining is insupportable and needs to stop. How many local business are we going to kill, and how many locals are we going to put out of work, with this unsupportable policy? SAM HAAS Santa Fe