Now, more than ever, it is essential that the public is able to make decisions about activities outside of their home based on complete and accurate information about the spread of coronavirus. The National Restaurant Association, together with our 50 state restaurant association partners, represents the entirety of the restaurant and foodservice industry, and our health experts review daily the greatly varying datasets available from state and local health departments. Additionally, we take seriously our responsibility to fairly and accurately present industry data and work alongside members of the media to help consumers make data-driven decisions. The success of our industry, and the millions of people it employs, depend on it.

Recently, a number of articles have been published with selective data points that fail to offer a thorough and accurate assessment of the safety of restaurants. Furthermore, the articles often use contact tracing as a way to draw a correlation between dining in a restaurant and the spread of the virus. Several health officials have noted that contact tracing data from state and local health departments have been generally inconsistent, which paints an unreliable picture. In areas where reliable data do exist, the data point to the fact that restaurants are responsible for a much smaller percentage of cases, especially in comparison to other businesses that remain open. Furthermore, a careful examination of the full data reveals that it is customer behavior outside the venue that is a major contributing factor in transmission.

Kimberly Hertin, Disease Surveillance Supervisor in the Office of Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance for the Southern Nevada Health District, recently stated that contact tracing efforts focus on the person with a confirmed case to make sure they don’t spread it to others, not identifying the source of that person’s infection. She has said “Once you’ve reached the point of community spread with this virus, it’s hard to jump to that conclusion of any clusters or outbreaks.” Similarly, in Washington, DC, city officials have not closed restaurants because they are unable to identify which permitted activities are driving new infections.

For example, in Maryland, 9% of people who tested positive for COVID-19 indicated they had been to a restaurant; however, almost twice as many people who tested positive were traced back to family gatherings. That’s a critical piece of the dataset that consumers need to know. In Louisiana, an ‘outbreak’ is considered two or more cases that have visited the same site within 14 days; however, a correlation between outbreaks and actual number of cases cannot be made. In the data provided from Louisiana, there were 38 ‘outbreaks’ in restaurants resulting in 167 cases. Yet, in casinos, there were 7 ‘outbreaks’ resulting in 200 cases.

While some states may point to indoor dining at restaurants as a risk factor, we still cannot find evidence of a systematic spread of the coronavirus coming from restaurants who are effectively following our Restaurant Reopening Guidance, encouraging guests to wear masks, social distancing, and practicing good hand hygiene. In effect, the lack of a direct correlation should be evidence that, when restaurants demonstrate effective mitigation efforts, the risk is low.

Having balanced and accurate information is critical for consumers, businesses, and government officials. The experts at the National Restaurant Association are always available to serve as a resource for any journalist or media professional working to interpret data points on the spread of coronavirus.
Together, we share the goal of equipping the public with clear data that can help them understand the facts and make well-informed decisions.
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Please contact Vanessa Sink, media@restaurant.org, for more information.

The Greater New Orleans Foundation (GNOF) announced $194,000 in new grants from its Louisiana Service & Hospitality Family Assistance Program, an initiative to support low-income restaurant, hotel, bar, catering and event staffing company employees who have been adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and who are working hard to support their dependent children and elderly parents. Total grants from the program now total over $1.4 million.

The program, launched with leading contributions from New Orleans Saints and Pelicans Owner, Mrs. Gayle Benson’s Community Assistance Fund at GNOF and the McIlhenny Company, maker of Tabasco® brand pepper sauce, has also received generous contributions from the Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority, the Allstate Sugar Bowl, Dennis and Alisson Allen, and JP Morgan Chase. Other generous supporters include Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana, the Sherry and Alan Leventhal Family Foundation, the Eugenie and Joseph Jones Family Foundation, New Orleans Original Daiquiris, JP Morgan Chase, Metabolic Studio, Republic National Distributing Company, Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, The Robert Henry Boh and Katherine Sandoz Boh Foundation, Dr. and Mrs. Neil J. Maki, Harry and Mary Ann Barkerding, and Ellen and Mac Ball. Our newest donor is Crystal Hot Sauce/Baumer Foods, Inc.

“Given the announcement of substantial additional layoffs in our region’s hotels and restaurants in recent weeks, the aid this fund provides to families in Southeast Louisiana is even more critical,” said Andy Kopplin, President and CEO of the Greater New Orleans Foundation. “Thanks to the investment of so many additional supporters, we are thrilled to announce we have the resources to make available another round of family assistance grants.”

The 194 grants awarded in this new round from the Louisiana Service & Hospitality Family Assistance Program will help the families of unemployed bar, hotel, and restaurant workers. Of the recipients, 11 were employed at bars, 103 at hotels, 70 at area restaurants, 7 at catering companies, and 3 at event planning companies with an average annual income of $28,600 per year, raising between one and four children. This pandemic has adversely impacted working families in all southeast Louisiana communities. Round IV grant recipients are residents of Jefferson, Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, St. Tammany, and Terrebonne parishes.

“New Orleans’ Hospitality Industry is the life line of our city,” said Pepper Baumer, President of Baumer Foods, Inc. “These workers are the reason New Orleans has the  reputation it does across the globe. They are the ambassadors of our city, and why people want to come visit! Not only is it our duty to help support these individuals, it’s also the right thing to do. That’s what makes New Orleans, New Orleans! We are always willing to help one another.”

Thanks to the generosity of new donors, we will award a new round of grants. Applications will be accepted for the next round of Louisiana Service & Hospitality Family Assistance Program grants until Friday, August 28, 2020 at 5 pm. To apply, please visit https://www.gnof.org/service-and-hospitality-employee-family-program/. All questions should be emailed to assistance@gnof.org.

To qualify, individuals applying must:

• Have earned 80% of the Area Median Income (AMI) or less prior to the COVID-19 pandemic
• Have worked more than 32 hours per week in restaurants, bars, hotels, caterers, and event staffing companies in the Greater New Orleans Foundation’s 13-parish region prior to March 9, 2020
• Have submitted a complete application which included: electronic copy of driver’s license or government-issued ID; pay stubs for most recent 30 days; and confirmation of household income AND number of dependents
  
  

To support this program’s expansion, please donate to the Gayle Benson Community Assistance Fund at the Greater New Orleans Foundation by visiting www.gnof.org/benson.

The National Restaurant Association and its members applaud the decision of Sen. Chuck Schumer to co-sponsor the Senate version of the Real Economic Support That Acknowledges Unique Restaurant Assistance Needed To Survive Act of 2020 (RESTAURANTS Act of 2020). Sen. Schumer’s decision highlights his support of this cornerstone American industry and his understanding of the on-going threat the pandemic poses to its survival.
 
“Restaurant jobs are the heartbeat of local communities across New York and the nation and the lifeblood of our economy, employing more young people, single mothers, and immigrants than most industries. As one of the hardest hit industries during this pandemic, we must do everything we can to ensure our restaurants and our restaurant workers are protected, otherwise we will shortchange our entire economy,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). “I am proud to stand with the National Restaurant Association and support the RESTAURANTS Act to give restaurants the relief they need to weather this crisis so they can eventually fully reopen and bring back to work millions of workers who have lost their jobs. Restaurants can’t wait. Congress needs to act now to pass this important legislation and other critical assistance that struggling small businesses and workers are in desperate need of.” 
 
“We appreciate Sen. Schumer’s leadership and his support of this vital legislation,” said Tom Bené, President & CEO of the National Restaurant Association. “The Senate version of the bill helps the widest array of restaurants which are all facing the same economic roadblocks. This important difference will mean that irrespective of their business model, more small business restaurant owners can hope for survival.”
 
The RESTAURANTS Act follows the form of a recovery fund the Association called for in a letter to Congress on March 18, just days after the industry was forced to shut down, and continued to refine in the Blueprint for Restaurant Revival. The fund would provide vitally needed immediate access to capital that would allow restaurants to endure. Between March and June, the industry lost more than $145 billion in sales and is on track to lose more than $240 billion by the end of the year.
 
According to Association research, at the height of the pandemic, 93 percent of New York state restaurants reported losses in sales and 80 percent of the state’s restaurant employees had been laid off or furloughed.
 
“The New York State Restaurant Association thanks Sen. Schumer for his support of restaurant owners and employees – both here in New York and across the country,” said Melissa Fleischut, President and CEO of the New York State Restaurant Association. “The restaurant industry is a vital and important economic engine in every community across our state. The support small business owners would get from this bill would be felt not only in our dining rooms but by other small business owners who help us make sure there is always a place at our tables.”
 
Read the full Senate RESTAURANTS Act here.

 Gov. John Bel Edwards signed an extension of his order keeping Louisiana in Phase Two and extending his statewide mask mandate, the closure of bars to on-premises consumption and the limitation on gatherings of more than 50 people for at least another 21 days, through Friday, August 28.

Gov. Edwards’ order to mandate masks and restrict bars matches recommendations from the White House Coronavirus Task Force and the advice of public health experts advising the Governor. The Governor’s order was upheld by Judge Janice Clark in the 19th Judicial District Court today.  

The Governor’s order is largely unchanged from his previous one. The new order does remove a provision that allowed parishes to opt out of the statewide mask mandate if their parish dropped below a certain incidence level of COVID. No parish meets this requirement, and recommendations from the White House Coronavirus Task Force support a statewide mandate.  

Louisiana has seen modest improvements in its COVID-19 situation in recent days, following the Governor’s mask mandate and bar restrictions. Reports of COVID-like illness, case counts and hospitalizations are trending down statewide, per data from the Louisiana Department of Health.  

“We’re just asking everyone to do your part and to understand that the progress we have started to see over the last several days is positive, but we can lose it. If we do what we did after Memorial Day, we will lose our positive gains,” Gov. Edwards said. “On the other hand, if more people will comply with the mitigation measures, we will actually accelerate the improvements we are making and they will be long lasting. We can lower our transmission rate and save lives. We’ve got a long way to go, but I am optimistic that we are going to get there. We have flattened the curve once, and we can do it again by doubling  down on these effective, proven mitigation measures.” 
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• Click here to read the renewal proclamation extending Phase Two.
• Click here to read the renewal proclamation pertaining to legal suspensions.