Calibrated reopening

At lunchtime last Friday, there was a waiting line outside Chuan Kee restaurant along Ongpin in Manila. This is the ground-level Chinese fast food below Café Mezzanine, the coffee shop opened for volunteer firefighters by Gerry Chua of Eng Bee Tin Chinese deli.

I went there for my usual maki mee, but only for takeout. When Metro Manila was eased into modified enhanced community quarantine, Chuan Kee reopened on a limited basis, with take-out orders transacted only at one entrance.

Last Friday, the restaurant was full. The tables were spaced farther apart, and each table had acrylic dividers in the middle. Some customers carried plastic bags whose unmistakable purple color meant they contained Eng Bee Tin products from the adjacent deli. Purple is the trademark color of Chua, who says that many years ago, ube or purple yam goodies saved his business.

The restaurant uses QR code for contact tracing, but those without a gadget for QR scanning can manually fill out a form. I’ve wondered about the usefulness of these forms, and the accuracy of the data written by customers.

At Chuan Kee, it probably contributed to dine-in patrons’ feeling of health safety that the restaurant is not air-conditioned and is comfortable even with natural ventilation. As there was a long line, I didn’t get a chance to go to the second floor, where Café Mezzanine is air-conditioned, so I didn’t see if it was just as full as the ground floor.

Obviously, this dine-in environment is impossible in the typical shopping mall. But there are several malls with open areas, where the restaurants can be allowed to put out tables and chairs just outside their establishments for al fresco dining. This is now being done in several countries.

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I’m taking note of what works in this pandemic because I enjoy eating out, and it depresses me to see so many dining establishments either permanently shuttered, or with signs that say they are indefinitely closed.

Industry players estimate that more than half of dining establishments nationwide have been shut down by the COVID pandemic. That’s hundreds of thousands of people out of jobs.

Even my favorite source of Chinese fresh lumpia, Po Heng along Carvajal alley near Ongpin, has yet to reopen, even if it’s not air-conditioned. Several other establishments along Carvajal are also closed. No one can tell if it will be for good.

The government wants local government units to allow dining establishments to operate for dine-in until 11 p.m. This will effectively move the curfew to that time. There’s no certainty, unfortunately, if longer hours will draw more diners. Chuan Kee is an exception; most of the restaurants I see have few dine-in clientele.

With even US President Donald Trump and his wife Melania contracting COVID, people could be even more keenly aware that the coronavirus continues to spread, that more and more people are getting infected, which means the chances are greater of catching the potentially deadly (and expensive to treat) affliction.

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The lack of a vaccine or cure also compels the imposition of measures that deter efforts to reopen certain economic sectors such as tourism.

You need to be an adventurer with an irrepressible travel bug and ample funds to be willing to go through all the hassles required to visit top tourist destinations outside Metro Manila.

The first pandemic-related burden is the requirement for a reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction swab test, whose price tag ranges from P3,500 to P12,000 (less than P2,000 in Marikina, but only for residents).

If the government wants to further reopen the economy, it should work ASAP to bring the saliva or spit or gargle test to the country. It’s more accurate, it’s a fraction of the price of the swab test, and it produces instant results. Never mind if certain folks who have plunked in a fortune in RT-PCR test kits will lose their investment. Accurate and affordable COVID testing with quick results would be a game changer in reopening the economy.

There’s also the age restriction, which means people can’t travel with their young children or elderly parents. The restriction makes sense, since these are vulnerable sectors, especially if air travel is involved. But most Pinoys travel for leisure with their families.

Airline companies have reassured the world that filtration systems on commercial flights capture from 94 to 99.9 percent of airborne pathogens. They emphasize that in-flight air is also changed every two or three minutes – far more often than in air-conditioned offices or moviehouses. The vertical rather than horizontal air flow on planes also supposedly reduces the risk of virus transmission.

Still, most people are wary of being confined for at least an hour in the enclosed space of a plane with strangers. It takes only 15 minutes, we’ve been told, for the COVID virus to spread from an infected person to a new host.

All of these mean that even domestic tourism will have a slow recovery, as people opt to travel mainly by land, in their own private vehicles. In our archipelago of over 7,100 islands, this narrows our destination choices.

The government wants a “calibrated reopening” of the economy. Clearly, businesses must also recalibrate strategies to adapt to the pandemic normal, which could last for another year.