So this announcement is: "COVID-19 is getting bad here, so we're going to close indoor dining on Tuesday of next week". Why not sooner? Seems like just asking for an extra four days of spread.
County of Santa Clara Public Health Department @HealthySCC
13 Nov 2020
BREAKING: Santa Clara and Other Bay Area Counties Move to Contain Spread of COVID-19: sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pag…
2
4
Restaurants to avoid throwing their existing food stocks, maybe?
1
1
Restaurants are doing pretty substantial takeout business, and in many cases also outdoor dining.
1
Also, when you're on an exponential growth curve, slowing it down four days earlier is a big deal, probably worth throwing out some food if it can't be put to other uses (which most probably can).
1
4
Plus, when they opened indoor dining a month (?) ago, I think it was already clear things were turning bad in other places as the weather got colder and people closed windows. It seemed like a clearly bad idea when it started.
1
(FWIW I had missed the bit about "indoor" dining. In Belgium it's too cold to eat outside anyway, when we closed restaurants we closed them wholesale)
1
Replying to @FremyCompany
There's been outdoor dining in California for a while. It's getting a tad cold for it. Yesterday was probably the warmest evening of the week; Palo Alto was 14°C at 19:00 (but intermittent light rain); on Sunday (8 November) was about 10°C at 19:00, 3°C at 22:00.

Nov 14, 2020 · 6:32 PM UTC