Health Dean Orders Out

Sten Vermund offered an uncontroversial pandemic tip: Order take-out to help keep restaurants in business.

“My wife and I are trying to make special efforts to do takeout at least as often as we used to go out to eat,” the Yale School of Public Health dean told reporters Wednesday afternoon at a Zoomed pandemic briefing.

The briefing mostly tackled trickier aspects of this latest phase of the Covid-19 pandemic. Vermund and his professors have conducted thousands of interviews since the pandemic began. They’ve been advising policymakers like Gov. Ned Lamont as they weigh decisions about how best to protect life and limit collateral damage to families and to the economy.

One of the fraught issues has concerned restaurants. Some experts have called on Lamont to ban indoor dining amid the latest spike in Covid-19 cases. Lamont has been reluctant to do that.

Vermund offered a nuanced response Wednesday when asked his take on the question.

Restaurant dining has indeed proved one of the three top causes of the coronavirus’s renewed spread, he said. (The other two: Family gatherings, and sports.)

“None of us want to see our restaurateurs go under. We’re working very hard to help them make restaurants safer and see if we can modulate risk,” Vermund said.

Some restaurants have done that better than others, he noted.

“Some restaurants may have put plexiglass between their booths. Some restaurants may not have done that,” he observed. Some have consulted with HVAC contractors to put in MERV-13 air filters. They’ve identified ​“dead spaces” and installed HEPA filters there. Others haven’t.

As a result, the governor has to figure out whether there’s a way to allow some safer restaurants to stay open while preventing unsafe restaurants from continuing to spread the coronavirus. That may or may not be possible, Vermund said. It’s a tough call.

“If the governor decides the rates are just too high” to allow continued indoor dining for now, Vermund said, ​“I’m not going to be one of the people writing a letter to the Hartford Courant protesting. He will only do that with input from the Department of Public Health. They’re an evidence-based group. They’re not looking to shut down restaurants.”

However that decision plays out, restaurants can still do take-out and delivery. People who can afford to eat out can help restaurants stay in business by continuing to exercise that option, Vermund said.

If you agree, check out the Independent’s ​“Today’s Special” feature: We’re describing and telling you the back story about a different recommended take-out option from a different local restaurant each weekday during the Covid ​“dark winter.” (You can find those stories here, or just check our homepage each day for the latest.)

Vermund portrayed another pandemic decision as a clearer call: When the vaccine arrives in coming weeks, health care institutions should require employees to take it. He recognized that the U.S. (like, say, Brazil, and unlike Cuba or his parents’ native Norway) leans heavily toward the ​“individual liberty” side versus the ​“social responsibility”/greater good side of debates over whether to mandate public-health measures. Policymakers here often end up seeking to convince people to, say, wear masks rather than require them to, because of the potential backlash. But health care workers aren’t failing to protect themselves if they refuse to be vaccinated, he noted: They put their patients in danger of contracting Covid-19.

“Health care workers should take fundamental responsibility to protect their patients,” Vermund argued. ​“It’s perfectly reasonable in the midst of a pandemic when people trust us and rely on us for all health care workers to get vaccinated, not just to protect ourselves, but to protect our patients.”

Vermund heralded the pending arrival of vaccines. At the same time he cautioned people from expecting life to return to pre-pandemic normal before the summer or fall, since it will take time to obtain enough doses to distribute to the population at large.