Your Favorite Restaurant Didn’t Have to Go Out of Business

In March 2020, Americans watched as lockdown states began closing businesses with little or no idea of the effects such shutdowns would have on the spread of Covid, or the economy.

In fact, it seemed as though Democratic governors in the U.S. were competing to implement policies that were most like Communist China’s brutal Covid crackdowns.

It turns out though, that measures like shutting down restaurants and bars didn’t really do anything, except force those small businesses into bankruptcy. Natalie Winters reports in the National Pulse:

A study on the efficacy of shutting down bars and restaurants to stop the spread of COVID-19 found that the restrictions were “not an efficient way” to decrease virus transmission, concluding that it “does not contribute to the suppression of SARS-CoV-2.”

“Using a large-scale nationally representative longitudinal survey, we found that the early closure of restaurants and bars decreased the utilization rate among young persons and those who visited these places before the pandemic. However, symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 did not decrease in these active and high-risk subpopulations,” explains a summary of the research paper.

The study – SARS-CoV-2 Suppression and Early Closure of Bars and Restaurants: A Longitudinal Natural Experiment – was conducted by researchers in Japan and published in the peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports. 

Researchers used Japan as a case study because during the first two months of 2021, the early closure of restaurants and bars was the only mitigation strategy adopted by officials. This gave researchers the unique opportunity to isolate the closure of restaurants and bars as variables they could assess the efficacy of.

Data for the study was provided through a large-scale nationally representative survey.

“From the perspective of public policy implications, our study suggests that the early closure of full-service restaurants and bars, without any other concurrent policies, is not an efficient way to suppress SARS-CoV-2. Given the large detrimental effects on employment, alternative measures for full-service restaurants and bars should be considered before they are closed completely,” summarized the paper.

Action Line: It didn’t have to be this way. Governors in some of my Super States worked hard to keep restaurants and other businesses open. If your state drove people out of their dream businesses and then left them to pick up the pieces, it’s time to look for a better America. Click here to sign up for my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter, where I’ll help you make sure your family is in the best position to achieve success.