Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness

April 16, 2021

Evaluating the Impact of Keeping Indoor Dining Closed on COVID-19 Rates among Large US Cities a Quasi-Experimental Design

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  • [Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] Closure of indoor dining venues was associated with approximately 43% lower COVID-19 incidence over 4 weeks in an ecological study comparing 11 US cities from March to October 2020. The study included 4 “treatment” cities in which restaurants were allowed to reopen but indoor dining remained closed and 7 “comparison” cities in which restaurants were allowed to reopen and state government legislation allowed indoor dining to reopen, preempting indoor dining closures that would otherwise have been required by the cities. The results suggest that keeping indoor dining closed averted an average of 91 daily cases per city, and that approximately 28,000 cases would have been averted over the 4-week period had all cities kept indoor dining closed.

Schnake-Mahl et al. (Apr 16, 2021). Evaluating the Impact of Keeping Indoor Dining Closed on COVID-19 Rates among Large US Cities a Quasi-Experimental Design. Pre-print downloaded Apr 16 from https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.12.21251656