CDC LINKS IN-PERSON RESTAURANT DINING TO INCREASE IN VIRUS CASES
Researchers say mask mandates were linked to fewer infections, deaths
Even as officials in Texas and Mississippi lifted statewide mask mandates, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday offered fresh evidence of the importance of face coverings, reporting that maskwearing mandates were linked to fewer infections with the coronavirus and COVID-19 deaths in counties across the United States.
Federal researchers also found that counties opening restaurants for on-premises dining — indoors or outdoors — saw a rise in daily infections about six weeks later, and an increase in COVID-19 death rates about two months later.
The study does not prove cause and effect, but the findings square with other research showing that masks prevent infection and that indoor spaces foster the spread of the virus through aerosols, tiny respiratory particles that linger in the air.
“You have decreases in cases and deaths when you wear masks, and you have increases in cases and deaths when you have in-person restaurant dining,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC, said Friday. “And so we would advocate for policies, certainly while we’re at this plateau of a high number of cases, that would listen to that public health science.”
On Friday night, the National Restaurant Association, which represents 1 million restaurants and food service outlets, criticized the CDC study as “an ill-informed attack on the industry hardest-hit by the pandemic.” It pointed out that researchers had not controlled for factors other than restaurant dining — such as business closures and other policies — that might have contributed to coronavirus infections and deaths.
“If a positive correlation between ice cream sales and shark attacks is found, that would not
mean that ice cream causes shark attacks,” the association said in a statement.
The group also faulted federal researchers for not measuring compliance with safe operating protocols, and it noted that the research did not distinguish between indoor dining or outdoor dining,
nor whether restaurants had adhered to distancing recommendations or had adequate ventilation.
“It is irresponsible to pin the spread of COVID-19 on a single industry,” the association said.
The findings come as city and state officials nationwide grapple with growing pressure to reopen
schools and businesses amid falling rates of new cases and deaths. Officials have recently permitted limited indoor dining in New York City. On Thursday, Connecticut’s governor said the state would be ending capacity limits later this month on restaurants, gyms and offices. Masks are still required in both locales.
“The study is not surprising,” said Joseph Allen, an associate professor at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and director of the university’s Healthy Buildings program. “What’s surprising is that we see some states ignoring all of the evidence and opening up quickly, and removing mask mandates and opening full dining.”
Other researchers said the new study confirmed the idea that viral transmission often takes place through the air, that physical distancing may not be sufficient to halt the spread in some settings, and that masks at least partly block airborne particles.
President Joe Biden’s health advisers have said in recent days that now is not the time to relax. As of Thursday, the seven-day average of new cases was still 62,924 a day, according to a database maintained by The New York Times.
While that figure is down 14 percent from two weeks earlier, new cases remain near the peaks reported last summer. Though fatalities have started falling, in part because of the vaccination campaigns at nursing homes, it remains routine for 2,000 deaths to be reported in a single day.
“It may seem tempting, in the face of all of this progress, to try to rush back to normalcy as if the virus is in the rearview mirror,” Andy Slavitt, a White House adviser on the pandemic, said Friday. “It’s not.”
CDC researchers examined the associations between mask mandates, indoor or outdoor restaurant dining, and coronavirus infections and deaths last year between March 1 and Dec. 31. The agency relied on county-level data from state government websites and measured daily percentage change in coronavirus cases and deaths.
Infections and deaths declined after counties mandated mask use, the agency found.
Daily infections rose about six weeks after counties allowed restaurants to open for dining on the premises, and death rates followed two months later.
The report’s authors concluded that mask mandates were linked to statistically significant decreases in coronavirus cases and death rates within 20 days of implementation. On-premises dining at restaurants, indoors or outdoors, was associated with rising case and death rates 41 to 80 days after reopenings.
“State mask mandates and prohibiting on-premises dining at restaurants help limit potential exposure to SARS-CoV-2, reducing community transmission of COVID-19,” the authors wrote.
Shortly after publishing the report, the CDC amended it, urging establishments that resume serving diners to follow agency guidelines for reducing transmission in restaurants.
A coalition of women’s rights and sexual abuse survivor advocates asked the New York attorney general on Friday to adopt rules to protect accusers and avoid political interference in the investigation into whether Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, sexually harassed his subordinates, while demanding his resignation if the claims against him are upheld.
The letter was intended both as a message to the state’s chief legal officer, Letitia James, who is leading the investigation, and the broader public about how a fair and transparent investigation of workplace misconduct should be handled.
The groups asked for James to adopt a civil law standard for determining Cuomo’s potential wrongdoing, as opposed to the criminal standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” They asked for “the full collection of relevant evidence” from contemporaneous sources and witnesses, and for the accusers not to be discounted because of questions of their sexual history, mental health struggles or record of championing “women’s causes.”
“Transparency is critical with respect to the survivor’s right to seek justice. If there is a credible finding that sexual harassment or assault occurred, there must be consequences; in this case, Gov. Cuomo’s resignation,” the coalition wrote in the letter.
“There is not a broad public understanding of what fair and thorough investigations look like,” said Shaunna Thomas, the cofounder of UltraViolet, a feminist group focused on ending sexism, who helped draft the letter. “This is a potentially crucial and paradigm-shifting moment for survivor justice.”
The letter was signed by 14 organizations, including Time’s Up, the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, the National Women’s Law Center, Survivors Know and Women’s March. Other signatories include the Me Too Movement, a group founded by Tarana Burke; Tewa Women United, a Native American group in New Mexico; Girls for Gender Equity; and PB Work Solutions, a workplace training consultancy headed by Paula Brantner.
Cuomo, 63, has maintained that he had never touched any woman “inappropriately” but has admitted and apologized for behavior that had caused harm in ways he said he did not recognize at the time. He has been accused by three women of inappropriate behavior in separate incidents. He has refused calls to resign and asked the public to await the conclusion of James’s investigation before passing judgment on him.
He initially worked to limit James’s independent authority over the inquiry, proposing that a retired federal judge lead the probe and then that James work with the chief judge of New York, Janet DiFiore, to pick someone to lead the investigation. James refused those terms, after which Cuomo agreed to refer the matter to her for an independent investigation with subpoena power.
The letter writers said they do not doubt James’s intent to conduct a fair investigation of the Cuomo accusations, but nonetheless said a “comprehensive list of characteristics” for such an investigation needs to be publicly declared. A spokesperson for James announced Friday that she had asked Cuomo’s office to retain all documents that could be germane to the investigation.
“It is really important that no matter where you sit in this situation, if you are working with someone who is really powerful and famous, or powerful and famous only to you, that we normalize the idea that there are fair and appropriate approaches to these allegations,” said Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women’s Law Center.
Cuomo’s office did not reply to a request for comment Friday morning. A spokesperson for the attorney general, who has not yet announced who will be hired to conduct the probe, said Friday that the letter was under review.