Contact tracing data shows high-risk locations
Work outside home, indoor shopping, dining increase chances of virus exposure
Four restaurant owners convinced a county judge to issue an injunction to temporarily halt County Executive Steuart Pittman’s month ban on indoor dining, arguing the restrictions are “arbitrary” and target restaurants while averting other sources of transmission.
The order limiting dining to outdoor service and carryout only aims to lower surging coronavirus cases to protect hospitals from becoming overwhelmed with demanding COVID-19 patients on top of regular patient loads. The lawsuit claims the order lacks scientific evidence that restaurants are “a significant source of COVID-19 contamination.”
“I think all restaurants if you were to show us data that restaurants are the problem, we’d all be like ‘Close them.’ We want to save lives, we want people to be healthy,” said James King, owner of Titan Hospitality, a plaintiff in the lawsuit. “It’s simply not there. Iwent eight months with 400 employees, and not a single employee gotCOVID.”
Epidemiologists and state contact tracing data confirm that dining inside is riskier than eating outside or avoiding dining out altogether. That doesn’t mean eating at a restaurant will result in a COVID-19 infection. It means the chances of exposure to the airborne virus increases when unmasked, indoors and around strangers for periods.
State contact tracing data collected in Anne Arundel County show work outside the home, indoor retail shopping and indoor dining as the most common locations a person with COVID-19 reported visiting, qualifying those places as high risk. Family gatherings, house parties and outdoor events are the most common type of gathering a person with COVID-19 reported attending.
In Anne Arundel County, 1,062 residents tested positive for COVID-19 the week ending Nov. 14. Of those who responded to contact tracer’s case investigations, 26% said they dined inside a restaurant or bar, and27% said they shopped inside a store in the past 14 days. Sixty-six percent of respondents said they worked outside the home, the highest risk location, 13% said they dined outside, and 11% said they played a recreational sport.
Some people who tested positive visited multiple high-risk locations, working outside the home and dining in public, for example, but the data tracks cases reporting at least one high-risk location.
From July 10 to Nov. 14, 6,837 residents positive withCOVID-19reported visiting at least one high-risk location. Around 58% said they work outside the home, 30% went shopping, 41% dined at a restaurant
broken down by 24% inside and 17% outside.
In that time, 1,539 positive residents reported attending a social gathering; 31% said they gathered with family, 18% said they went to a house party and 15% attended an outdoor event.
“If you’re having dinner with someone that you don’t live with, whois infected, and you’re indoors in a restaurant — That’s a great way to transmit. It would be very unlikely that those venues don’t contribute,” said Dr. Emily Gurley, infectious disease epidemiologist and faculty member at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“How much do they contribute relative to other things? That’s something that we just don’t know.”
Interactions people have while shopping are very different than the behaviors associated with dining, Gurley said. Restaurants have a slower turnover of people since dinners are spent conversing with others and eating, actions that can release viruscarrying particles and droplets without a mask.
Anne Arundel County has more retail stores than restaurants. People visit stores more than restaurants, but for a shorter amount of time, that’s spent under a mask. Those conditions make each individual’s risk of infection lower in the retail space, said Health Officer Nilesh Kalyanaraman.
Restaurant owners point to family gatherings as a bigger risk factor for COVID-19 infection than their dining rooms since social gatherings lack restaurantgrade sanitation practices. The lawsuit brought by Titan Hospitality, Heroes Pub, Capo and Severna Park Rib Co argues shutting down restaurants will drive people to dinner parties, increasing the county’s case rate.
“Not only are you exacerbating the problem and the spike in viruses, but you’re destroying the industry while doing so,” King said.
Health Officer Nilesh Kalyanaraman said that reasoning is speculative.
“We know that when certain restrictions are put into place, they do decrease transmission rates,” Kalyanaraman said.
“It’s not just that you’re bringing people together at your table who would not necessarily have gotten together. You’re also in a restaurant with other tables … of people you’ ve never met before in the same space as you,” he added.
King also questions why county restaurants can’t operate at the statewide 50% capacity mandate issued by Gov. Larry Hogan. The lawsuit seeks to revert capacity levels to Hogan’s guidance so food establishments can survive the winter.
Anne Arundel County residents positive for COVID-19 are 2.2 times more likely to have been at a bar or restaurants than a retail location, Kalyanaraman said. The percentage is calculated from contact tracing data for retail (both stores and restaurants) and data on the number of businesses in the county from Anne Arundel Economic Development Corporation.
The virus is mostly spread through close contact with a person positive with COVID-19, but it can spread through airborne transmission in indoor places with inadequate ventilation, according to the CDC.
There are safety protocols to lower the potential for virus exposure and protect staff and customers in restaurants. Though social distancing and masks can reduce the risk of exposure, ventilation and the direction and intensity of air flow might still affect virus transmission, a July CDC study found.
Adults with a positive COVID-19 test result were approximately twice as likely to have reported dining at a restaurant than were those with negative test results, the study found.