Speaker 1: It's Monday, November nine. I'm Oscar Romeiras from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is Reopening America.
Speaker 1: As the weather turns colder, restaurants have had to adapt
Speaker 1: once again to be able to serve customers and keep
Speaker 1: the coronavirus from spreading. Enter bubble dining. Restaurants are setting
Speaker 1: up clear plastic domes and pods with tables set inside
Speaker 1: to keep customers safe and warm, but are they safe?
Speaker 1: Ventilation and cleanliness must still be maintained inside. Alison too Wellness,
Speaker 1: reporter at the Washington Post, joins us for the new
Speaker 1: dining pods. Thanks for joining us, Allison, Thanks som for
Speaker 1: having me on. I've been pretty fascinated with the progression
Speaker 1: of how restaurants have been adjusting to the pandemic. Early on,
Speaker 1: obviously everything transition to outdoor dining, and then the big
Speaker 1: question came was like, well, what are we gonna do
Speaker 1: when it starts getting cold? What are we gonna do
Speaker 1: when it starts raining. You know, you still need to
Speaker 1: put people in certain places. And one of the new
Speaker 1: things that have been popping up in certain areas now
Speaker 1: you can call them bubble tents. Domes dining pods. But
Speaker 1: there's these little clear iglue like things where they're setting
Speaker 1: up outside of restaurants and then you know they're putting
Speaker 1: the table and chairs inside. There's a lot of questions
Speaker 1: are these things safe because now you're just creating an
Speaker 1: enclosed area where diners are sitting. So Allison, you looked
Speaker 1: into this, tell us a little bit more about it.
Speaker 1: So the dining bubbles have become, like you said, just
Speaker 1: increasingly popular, especially as the weather starts to turn colder
Speaker 1: in some places across the US, you know, or even
Speaker 1: in other countries. And like you said, the big concern
Speaker 1: is whether it's safe to be grouping and people a
Speaker 1: group of people inside an area where it's small and
Speaker 1: the ventilation is not good essentially because it's a tense
Speaker 1: And so what experts are saying is that any activity
Speaker 1: that you do at this point in the pandemic that
Speaker 1: is outside of your household, there's always to be some
Speaker 1: level of risk, but there are a lot of things
Speaker 1: you can do to mitigate or you know, reduce the
Speaker 1: level of risk. And when it comes to pod dining,
Speaker 1: while we've all established that environment is not ideal in
Speaker 1: a pandemic, there are a number of things that you
Speaker 1: can do to kind of make it safer for you
Speaker 1: and the group of people that you'll be eating with.
Speaker 1: So one of the main things, obviously is to really
Speaker 1: be careful about who you're choosing to have the meal with. Obviously,
Speaker 1: at this point, if someone in that tent has coronavirus,
Speaker 1: the chance of you getting it, you know, might be
Speaker 1: higher than say, if you're eating outdoors with that person.
Speaker 1: From what the experts were telling you, there's these tradeoffs.
Speaker 1: If you're in a small bubble situation, well you're protected
Speaker 1: from outside people and they're protected from you. But that
Speaker 1: tradeoff is, yes, you are spending more time in these tighter,
Speaker 1: enclosed places, and one of the things that you mentioned
Speaker 1: kind of evaluating who you're dining with. I guess the
Speaker 1: ideal situation would be to go from your bubble, your
Speaker 1: pandemic bubble, to dining in this bubble, dining sitting with
Speaker 1: those same people. If you really want to be safe,
Speaker 1: at least you all know you're following the rules exactly exactly,
Speaker 1: and so the safest option is dining with either your
Speaker 1: immediate household, because you're already exposed to those people in
Speaker 1: your home setting, and so it would really be similar
Speaker 1: to having a meal at home around the dining room table,
Speaker 1: or like you said, you're grouping with friends who may
Speaker 1: not be in your immediate household, but they're part of
Speaker 1: your pandemic pot and you all agreed to be very
Speaker 1: careful and so the chances of them having the virus
Speaker 1: and chances you having the virus are are very low.
Speaker 1: So those are all things you have to think about.
Speaker 1: And then you're thinking about, well, what do I do
Speaker 1: with sanitation and ventilation? And there are ways where you
Speaker 1: can create better air flow in the tent, opening the windows,
Speaker 1: open the doors. You know, just keep being mindful of
Speaker 1: wearing your math when you're not eating, making sure you're
Speaker 1: practicing good hand hiking, all the rules that have already
Speaker 1: been kind of ingrained in us. At this point. The
Speaker 1: ventilation thing is going to be a huge thing. One
Speaker 1: of the experts said, if you're in one of these
Speaker 1: bubbles that definitely shouldn't be feeling stuffy or like their stale,
Speaker 1: and then that would be a sign right away to
Speaker 1: change something. And as you mentioned, maybe open the little
Speaker 1: zipper for the window or whatever it is. And these
Speaker 1: bubbles pods are popping up in a lot of places
Speaker 1: New York, Chicago. In Seattle, there was a restaurateur speaking
Speaker 1: to a local news station saying, you know, they were
Speaker 1: spending a lot of money on getting these but with
Speaker 1: regards to the ventilation, they were, uh, you know, this
Speaker 1: is gonna be hard to do. There's people waiting, but
Speaker 1: they were spending ten or fifteen minutes in between parties
Speaker 1: just to let it air out. So the difficult part
Speaker 1: about the ventilation is there's really no guidance and there's
Speaker 1: just hasn't been the research done to know exactly, you know,
Speaker 1: what is the right amount of time that you need
Speaker 1: to let these pods air out for. So I think
Speaker 1: a lot of restaurants are having to try to figure
Speaker 1: that out on their own and trying to figure out,
Speaker 1: you know, what is that appropriate amount of time, and
Speaker 1: there just isn't science on that yet. And cleaning and
Speaker 1: cleaning to you clean the surface of the table, but
Speaker 1: are people cleaning the whole inside of the dome? You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff that goes into it. And
Speaker 1: like I said, I applaud these people for really getting
Speaker 1: innovative with ways to figure it out, ways to keep
Speaker 1: Peter there, but you're right, it always brings up more
Speaker 1: questions and how on how you're going to actually do
Speaker 1: it in practice, Right, there's a lot, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of variability for sure. Well, we'll see how these bubble
Speaker 1: pods work out, and we'll see how well they catch on.
Speaker 1: You know, if there's a lot of success with them,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're gonna see them in a lot of
Speaker 1: different places as it is, a lot of restaurants and
Speaker 1: cities have even allowed everybody already to spread out in
Speaker 1: the sidewalks and the streets in certain areas. So definitely
Speaker 1: something that will be with us for a little while still.
Speaker 1: Alison che Wellness, reporter at the Washington Post, thank you
Speaker 1: very much for joining us. Thank you so much. I'm Oscarmeres,
Speaker 1: and this has been reopening America. Don't forget that, says
Speaker 1: big news stories. You can check me out on the
Speaker 1: Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. So follow us
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