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QR codes for restaurant menus: threat or menace?

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SiliconWizard:

--- Quote from: Zero999 on July 28, 2021, 03:49:30 pm ---
--- Quote from: TimFox on July 28, 2021, 03:38:36 pm ---I agree.  The only time I have been presented with the QR code as mandatory (instead of voluntary), I was prepared to leave if the waiter couldn't find me a printed menu.  This was out of town, when I was traveling often for family reasons, and the restaurant had adopted this new policy during roughly 10 days since my previous visit there.
Someone pointed out that menus are an unlikely source of contagion:  I think this is true.  At the beginning of the plague, when little was known about it, it was thought that it was transmitted like other known diseases and there was an emphasis on surfaces.  Later, after actual research, the airborne droplet route became the preferred theory.  (Theory is not guesswork.)

--- End quote ---
I volunteer at Riding for the Disabled and there's still a lot of emphasis on cleaning things. It's funny how some people haven't moved with the science.

I remember when it first started, lots of people wore gloves in the supermarket, which I always thought was silly. Masks were also not recommended, for some reason. Then the government made a U-turn mandating masks, which some people disagreed with, but plenty of people still wear masks, even though they're no longer legally required.

--- End quote ---

That's pretty much the same all around the world, at least in the western world.
All this coming from the WHO, governments and "specialists" constantly giving changing and contradictory directives, many of which not being based on real science.

TimFox:
Note that "real science" often changes its mind based on additional evidence, while ideology remains fixed on its axioms.

Zero999:

--- Quote from: TimFox on July 28, 2021, 03:59:02 pm ---Early on, there was emphasis on how long the virus could stay viable on different surfaces, and there are other pathogens where surface transmission is important, so cleanliness in a medical or food facility is still important.
With more research, emphasis changed to ventilation and masking to reduce airborne transmission by droplets and aerosols.
Before the plague, I often attended a Shakesperean theater in Chicago with a thrust stage and strong stage lighting.  When an actor delivered a strong speech (with those powerful Shakesperean insults), the saliva droplets flying meters away from his mouth were clearly visible in the lights.  The theaters in Chicago intend to open sort-of normally again around October--I hope that the current surge of cases amongst the unvaccinated can be arrested.

--- End quote ---
I never really understood the rational for the emphasis on cleaning surfaces. Right from the beginning, it was evident it's a respiratory virus, like influenza, the common cold and the original SARS, which all spread through the air, rather than smallpox and polio, which transmit via surfaces. I can see why masks were controversial, because the virus is so small, but to me it makes sense to wear one, as the droplets the virus is attached to are relatively large. I think the authorities were worried about people buying up all the masks, leaving none for clinicians, hence why they advised against them

One important thing people need to do, if they wear a mask, make sure it's clean, otherwise it does increase the risk of other respiratory infections. Not enough emphasis has been placed on the need to regularly change the mask for a clean one. It's extremely important.

Unfortunately cases will quite likely increase in October, unless more people are vaccinated and even then, it will probably still happen, but it will be milder, in those who have had the jab.

TimFox:
The authorities' original reason to recommend against masking was due to a serious shortage of "PPE", and the unmet need for medical workers:  there are numerous horror stories of unprotected medical workers early in the plague.
Clean masks are essential, as you say:  I have heard other horror stories of fungal infections in lungs due to unclean masks.  The difference between microscopic viruses and more macroscopic droplets was not appreciated by the public early in the plague.
Looking at the local statistics (State of Illinois), we reached a local minimum with a test-positive rate of only 0.6% in mid-June, about a week after a "re-opening" of the State and increased indoor activity after a substantial increase in immunization as the vaccine supply became available to larger groups.  Since then, it has increased monotonically:  today's (seven-day average) is just over 4%, the level last seen in April on its way down from a local peak of 4.5% shortly after Easter.  In most jurisdictions in the US, a huge fraction (roughly 95%) of Covid hospitalizations is of un-vaccinated patients.  This did not have to be this bad, but politics was entangled with the response to masks and vaccines.
Recent news indicates a shift in political attitudes in favor of vaccination, but it's not clear how far down into the population this attitude has gone.  One satirical suggestion is that the current administration should ban vaccination, and then the politically-inclined would demand it.

Ranayna:
So however this thread has so quickly gone CoVID, i will try to steer it back on topic ;)

I am sure, online only menu cards would have appeared sooner or later anyway:

You dont have to print menus, only small cards, therefore it's cheaper
You can change availability on the fly.
You can change prices on the fly.
You can even change prices depending on the user's device.
You can gather a lot of information about the user, especially if the user has to use an app

But call me old fashioned: A restaurant without the ability to order offline would be one i would not visit.

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