i was at a chinese restaurant in monterey park this past weekend and the owner’s wife mentioned that she was down a waiter or two and attributed it to the coronavirus scare. it came up only because she apologized for having her daughter there in the restaurant while she filled in for one of the waitstaff. we warned her to hide the kid if certain gweilo types who looked like they might report her to childrens’ services came into the restaurant. (if asked, i will not be able to recall where i ate this weekend.)
the point is that i confess to being curious if that’s having a significant impact on chinese businesses in LA that could possibly be dealing with clients/patrons who could have come to the U.S. recently from overseas.
The whole thing is a media spread panic. The folks that are dying are older or already have serious health issues. Thousands and thousands more people died from the flu this season than they have and will from the coronavirus.
Somebody just claimed that one of the Monterey Park restaurants is closing for a month or two until this hopefully blows over. Anybody know this for a fact?
Despite the regrettable anti-Chinese backlash this episode has manifested in non-Asian communities, the Asian response in the SGV has been equally horrifying as newspaper accounts have reported. One of my friends is avoiding Chinese restaurants entirely while another is hunkered down at home after reading a Facebook post claiming two people died in Arcadia from the virus.
Dined at New Capital Seafood in Rowland Heights on Monday and it was fairly deserted. Never been before on weekdays but had seen massive weekend lines pre-coronavirus and it was a shock to see it so empty. Kind of depressing really.
We were there that night because they were offering a King Crab deal to get people back in: I think order $70 worth of dishes and you can get King Crab at a discount per pound (don’t know the exact cost). The King Crab apparently was priced down to the point where they were essentially giving it away. Everybody there that night was getting it.
My parents talked to a server as we were wrapping up and he confirmed that a restaurant my mother had frequented just the previous week had decided to close, among others. I couldn’t tell if it was just for a couple months, until this blows over, or permanently but am leaning towards the former. Either way, very sad news all around. Especially considering the new unknown origin cases that have just cropped up.
Yeah, it’s a bummer. I was watching a disease control type person on cable news. He was speaking of the dangers, updating statistics, dispelling myths, and listing things to do for prevention. At the end of his segment he said “and go to Chinatown and eat this weekend, because their businesses are really suffering“.
I feel very sad for the business owners and their employees.
Although I agree the media has grossly exaggerated coronavirus concerns, I wouldn’t necessarily blame the media for business troubles in the SGV. I think Chinese people (and East Asians in general) tend to be more worried about illnesses than Americans of European descent. (I’m basing this on having a Chinese wife, having mutual Chinese friends, and previously living in Tokyo.)
Yesterday, I went to two restaurants – Northern Cafe on Garfield Blvd. and Yxta in DTLA. All the employees at Northern Cafe were wearing masks. Of course, nobody at Yxta were wearing masks.
i think it would be silly to pretend that native culture isn’t a factor in how people are responding. but if a critical mass of americans start to panic, i expect that their response is going to make everyone else’s responses up to that point seem very tame.
I think media is still underestimating the impact coronavirus will have on the population, hospital system etc. The US is just 1-2 weeks behind the situation in Lombardy where they already run out of ICU beds (and the US doesn’t have a significantly higher rate of ICU beds/population than Italy)
The CDC is not testing agressively enough. Our hospitals cannot handle this if this gets out of control. We should be concerned, but not buying up all the TP concerned.
Do all the things you should be doing: self isolation, washing hands, eating healthy, cough into your arms and wear a mask (self isolate is better than out and about in the community), if you are not high risk with no serious symptoms stop flooding our Emergency Departments. No you don’t get antibiotics with a virus, that’s not how it works.
That sums it up quite nicely.
We are about 9-14 days behind Italy and we can see what effect the corona virus has on the country (and they have actually a better functioning government than the US currently (I never thought I would write that about Italian politics ever)
a panic recently hit ktown as well. it may not be related, but a lower end AYCE KBBQ (sanya) dropped their M-F lunch price down to $9.99 while just about all the others have crept up to a minimum of $13.99 over the last few years. $4 out of 14 is over 30% when you factor in tipping on a smaller total.
