Building Immune Systems in Restaurants

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3. Risk Reduction

Infection control is about controlling risk. It includes a multileveled systems approach, with consideration given to complex variations in transmission, people, the environment they are in, and purposeful redundancy. The SARS-CoV-2 virus has four known paths of transmission. We must prepare a plan to take adequate steps to reduce the risk of transmission with purposeful approaches and appropriate systems. The following sections review the known technologies that may help us reduce the associated risk with each path.

Path One (Large Droplet) Transmission

Air handling systems, general dilution ventilation and pressure differentials do not influence this short-range transmission of large droplets. Health organizations recommend social distancing as the only solution to reduce risk. Planners, architects and interior designers should be consulted to identify the best method to organize spaces and people. Emerging approaches that we all have seen at our local neighborhood grocery store may include partitions and/or glass barriers. In addition, it is now assumed cloth face mask may help reduce the size and number of droplets coming from infected individuals. Because of this, our employees wearing face masks will become a part of our new normal.

Figure 10. Guests dining in unique settings during pandemic (15)

Path Two (Surface Contact) Transmission As virus latent droplets land on surfaces, those surfaces become the origin of transmission of this indirect path. Individuals touching these surfaces complete the path. PATH 2 transmission risks are significantly reduced by frequent washing with soap and water. If soap and water are not available, alcohol-based hand rubs can suffice. In addition, cleaning surfaces and/ or somehow inactivating the virus that lay in wait on those surfaces, is part of this battle.