Read on Twitter
I'm seeing a lot of enthusiasm's for Philly's potential return to outdoor dining as early as a week from today. This is just one reason the idea feels scary and terrifying. https://twitter.com/kimodonnel/status/1266397682366545921
It feels like we're confusing, consciously or not, our desire (at this point, nostalgia) for the carefree, communal dining experience of Before with the new normal that will eventually trickle into reality. Sidewalk seating doesn't bring us back to that.
Parsing these feelings and impulses is complicated, because patrons, incl. food media, want to support restaurants and their staff, and the way we know to do that is through consumption. The sooner they restart service, the sooner we'll be back to """business as usual."""
But it's a selfish desire, because we conflate that craving for meeting up with friends for drinks or treating ourselves to lunch out on a perfect summery day with the health and safety of these businesses and their staff (not to mention that of ourselves and our fellow diners).
This enthusiasm—which I'm mostly seeing from owners, lobbyists, and restaurant media—makes me scared and sad.
This could have been avoided with proper government support (regular $) of workers and business owners, not to mention the customers, many of whom are trying to work at home with school-aged kids, who are desperate for a change of scene and a meal they didn't have to cook.
(There are more urgent sad and fucked-up things going on right now, but I'm distracting myself from those by tweeting about this particular sad and fucked-up thing.)
"None of the five counties in the Philadelphia region is close to meeting a key goal — a low rate of new infections — that Gov. Tom Wolf initially said needed to be met before parts of the economy could be restarted." 
https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/gov-tom-wolf-philadelphia-yellow-mayor-jim-kenney-coronavirus-reopening-20200528.html
https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/gov-tom-wolf-philadelphia-yellow-mayor-jim-kenney-coronavirus-reopening-20200528.html
