Short thread on some of the available evidence re: restaurants, much of the best data comes from US, which have similar requirements for staff on masks and table layout to Europe.

They have the best data partly because they funded Public Health to 2.5% of all health expenditure.

In Louisiana, 339 recent outbreaks have been traced to source. Restaurants rank as the 2nd most common venue of infection.

By setting:

Industrial setting - 55
Restaurant - 42
Bar - 41
Retail - 31
Meat plant/Food Processing - 29

https://ldh.la.gov/index.cfm/page/3997

What's most interesting is the average amount of cases associated with restaurant clusters in Louisiana is 4 cases.

Whereas there were fewer meat outbreaks but the average cluster was 25 cases, which again highlights the ease of spread in the cold, ventilated indoor environment.

In Maryland, a whopping 12% of all new cases in July were traced back to restaurants.

That's what prompted Baltimore to ban indoor-dining in restaurants on July 22nd. They did this 8 weeks ago with little fuss. https://wjla.com/news/coronavirus/baltimore-suspends-indoor-dining-at-bars-restaurants

In Colorado, 53 of 523 resolved outbreaks were traced to restaurants (10%).

Of those, 75% were traced to traditional sit-down dining (restaurant) and 25% were fast-food (e.g. McDonald's).

Restaurant clusters account for 14 of their 151 active outbreaks. https://drive.google.com/file/d/17KZRoH0IAqf0_u45u53u10lduC96vhVY/view

Across the US, restaurants are in the top 5 venues for source of infection, but below pubs.

In France, bars and restaurants are grouped together but as a collective are top 5 for source of infection.

Europe does less tracing to source than US due to underfunding Public Health.

Ireland could do with funding Public Health more so that we would have the personnel and resources to do more of this in future epidemics.

As it stands, the US evidence is that restaurants and pubs are one of the more common ways people contract Covid19.