During last summer’s Delta surge, this statistic was under 50.
Vaccines provide little or no protection against infection by current Omicron subvariants (though strong protection against hospitalization and death). Most infections are currently asymptomatic. People pretending that the pandemic is over combined with the extreme infectiousness of the current variants has resulted in the second-biggest surge of the pandemic.
I stopped spending time inside at restaurants and bars three weeks ago.
Seeing a serious rise in cases over the past 1-2 weeks. Stay safe y’all…
I would probably stick to take out now……
I know more people in SoCal who have gotten covid in the last 2 weeks than the last 2 years combined. A few people who are vaxxed and boosted not doing well. We are back to masking up.
@hungryhungryhippos The meal at Bestia looks awesome. It’s been a while since we’ve been . I just looked up reservations and it’s still the same as always. You need to book about 2 months out.
Just as a PSA to give people a sense of how real it is right now, after 2+ years of luck, my luck run out and I got it last week flying back from a work retreat. It’s everywhere.
Same. 2 hits in my household. All vaxed and boosted. Good luck y’all.
Us too. Wife and I picked it up at a wedding.
We got really lucky and got a 6pm reservation just two weeks out. Maybe set up alerts for cancellations.
Thanks for the heads up everyone regarding the rona! Hope everyone is doing ok and having speedy recoveries.
Unfortunately we already have plans for Memorial Day but most of it is outdoors thankfully.
We’ve decided to avoid indoor dining (again), after dodging recent bullets–a trip (busy airports and full flights) to crowded Venice, then husband had to care for elderly parents who got Covid (in spite of all precautions), but neither of us has tested positive so far. I know the death and hospitalization rates aren’t as high now, but I don’t want to risk the possibility of long covid. It’s nice to have so many options for outdoor dining, and the weather to enjoy it.
Feel better, Haeldaur 
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Hope everyone heals up quickly and easily!
I might be an outlier on the cautious end, but I quit dining and drinking indoors in December when Omicron spiked and haven’t done it since. Have had meals with table service on a couple patios at restaurants, but that’s rare. Mostly doing takeout, or counter service places where I can seat myself on a patio wherever I feel comfortable and can bail easily.
I too know lots of people who ducked it for two years but have gotten caught in the last few weeks.
Never started tbh.
Vaxxed & boosted and got it in January, so I’m dining indoors as much as I can with my remaining/waning immunity.
I stopped doing stuff indoors unmasked during the first Omicron wave, but community spread dropped so low that I started again in February.
Have turned up our caution level as well. We were very cautious with COVID all the way through early spring this year, until that big Omicron wave subsided. Once our kids were fully vaxxed, we started eating out frequently. As of a month or so ago, we weren’t even masking at all during our meals out.
However, we’re now trying to be smart about it. Hard to go back to eating at home / takeout, but we’re going to restaurants we know are nicely spaced out or tend to keep doors / windows open. And we’ve started masking again from the time we walk in to when the food arrives, and then after we’re done eating.
What’s harder to accept is that we never started traveling again and now with this latest surge coupled with the non-masking on flights, we decided not to travel this summer, which would have been the first time seeing my family since pre-COVID. So, I’m pretty bummed but just don’t feel the need to take the risk on long COVID.
+1
I never stopped masking indoors, though. It’s been nice not catching a cold or the flu for the last two or so years.
I still wear my fit-tested N95 when going shopping. From my experience in NYC and Philly the museum staffs are pretty strict about keeping the mask on and checking vaccination cards. I’ll also mask up outdoors since NYC has so much foot traffic. In Chinatown just about everyone is masked up indoors and outdoors. I probably feel safest there than any other place here on the east coast because I know the mask compliance and vaccination is very high. You go to the high line where’s its shoulder to shoulder and crotch to ass of unmasked tourists blabbing away with their sputum all over the place and taking pictures in the middle of the damn walkway lol. I’ll outdoor dine if the restaurant jut opened and no one is around but pretty much I can find a park where I can enjoy the food by myself. With the recent jump in cases I’ll stick to takeout. The outdoor seating are just too damn close imo. Some of the outdoor dining in Chinatown have actual private booths which I think are pretty cool. If I was in LA or back in CA I would probably just get takeout and go back home. Depending on the neighborhood idling in your car eating may make you a easy target.
Everyone I know has tested positive these past few weeks, and I got a severe head cold from the one time I ate indoors (10 days ago, at R+D), so I won’t be doing that again for a long time. Patios only, if I go out at all.
I also mask outdoors (regular surgical mask) when walking through crowded areas outdoors. N95 indoors.
I’m planning to fly and then take a shuttle 2 wks from now (and will be wearing an N95 for the entirety of that) and am praying I don’t catch something. 
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