Dining Out In The New Normal

I don't go out to eat much but I've noticed that doing so these days requires a lot of paperwork. You have to fill out a form with your name and address and phone number in order to help with contract tracing. If someone with COVID-19 is traced to the same place where you went for a burger or a pizza then you can be contacted and tested. Here are a few samples.

McDonald's

Dunkin' Donuts

Chowking

Greenwich Pizza

Bob's

Mang Inasal

This restaurant has trays for the form and the pen used to fill it out.

All pens must be sanitized.

Starbucks has the same set up. Fill out a form and place the pen in a box to be sanitized.

Jollibee also has a form to fill out but that is only if you want to eat inside the restaurant.

Another option for customers is to sit in the parking lot and eat in their car. It's rather simple of course but Jollibee has explicit instructions and even designated spaces for dining-in-car customers.

It would be fun if whoever delivered your order did so on roller skates.

A few weeks later this particular Jollibee and the Greenwich Pizza restaurant above modified their set ups so that not only does one have to fill out a form but one also has to take their own temperature.

You stand in front of that machine and get scanned. The genius of this contraption is that it frees the security guard from having to scan every patron.

If you are dining at a restaurant in the mall you might have to go wash up. Yes there is a new normal in the mall's toilet set-up.

I understand why they closed off every other urinal but why the stalls? Each stall is its own private room. What is more social distancing than being in your own private room? This is just dumb.

If you need to retrieve money from the ATM to finance your meal well that situation is also pretty dumb.

Why did they cover it in plastic? Everyone will still be touching the same buttons. The same germs will be spread. Nothing has been gained by this. It has an aura of safety and prevention but is just plain dumb.

All those forms are for contact tracing. But how does that work exactly?

https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/1863484/Network/Feature/What-is-contact-tracing-and-how-does-it-work-with-Covid-19

THE goal of contact tracing is to alert people who may have been exposed to someone with the coronavirus, and prevent them from spreading it to others. 

Health experts say contact tracing is key to containing the virus and allowing places to reopen more safely.  

But the process isn’t easy. 

After a person tests positive for the virus, a contact tracer would get in touch with the person and attempt to determine where they have been and who they were around. 

The focus is on close contacts, or people who were within six feet of the infected person for at least 10 minutes or so. Those people would then be asked to self-isolate, monitor themselves for symptoms and get tested if needed. 

For those showing symptoms, the tracing process would start all over again. 

Contact tracing is done in a variety of ways around the world. But a common issue is that determining who a person has been around can get harder as gatherings with friends and family resume, and as bars, restaurants and other places start reopening. 

There’s also pressure to act quickly. Ideally, most of a person’s contacts would be alerted within a day.

How will these forms be able to assess just who has been "within six feet of the infected person for at least ten minutes?" They won't. But if you want to eat out the forms must be filled.