Governor Cuomo has given New Yorkers a one-week warning that indoor dining will likely be shut down, regardless of the number of positive cases that are specifically tied back to restaurants
Following multiple calls from restaurant industry trade groups demanding more transparency with the state’s COVID-19 contact tracing data, Gov. Andrew Cuomo released a detailed breakdown during a press conference on Friday showing how COVID-19 is spreading throughout the state.
Restaurants and Bars Account for 1.4 Percent of COVID-19 Spread in New York
The data was released at the same time that Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a ban on indoor dining in NYC
by Erika Adams and Tanay Warerkar Dec 11, 2020, 1:59pm EST
Following multiple calls from restaurant industry trade groups demanding more transparency with the state’s COVID-19 contact tracing data, Gov. Andrew Cuomo released a detailed breakdown during a press conference on Friday showing how COVID-19 is spreading throughout the state.
Restaurants and bars accounted for 1.43 percent of COVID-19 cases recorded between September through the end of November, according to contact tracing data.
The figure places the industry as the fifth-largest contributor to spreading COVID-19 in the state, following education employees (1.5 percent), higher-education students (2.02 percent), and healthcare delivery (7.81 percent).
The largest contributor to COVID-19 spread in New York, by far, is private household and social gatherings. According to the state, 73.84 percent of COVID-19 cases spread through private gatherings.
The COVID-19 spread data was derived from 46,000 cases recorded in the past three months.
During the same press conference in which the COVID-19 spread data was released, Cuomo also announced that indoor dining was banned in NYC starting on Monday.
Even though restaurants were demonstrably not a large contributor to the uptick in COVID-19 cases in comparison to private gatherings, Cuomo said that banning indoor dining in the city was “one of the few areas where we think we can actually make a difference” in slowing the spread. Earlier this week, the state disclosed that indoor dining was the fastest-growing source of COVID-19 spread in New York.
The full breakdown of COVID-19 spread data is below:
