After the massive break out of the deadly viral of coronavirus, governments across the globe decided to dramatically curtail bars, restaurants, and clubs in order to stop the spread of the disease. Left with no choice since many people were still outside dining, ignoring the severity of the situation, the government chose to take some severe steps. However, some responsible citizens took matters in their own hands and decided to be their own hero. To stop the rapid acceleration of the virus, some people decided to stay at home even before governments declared the closure of restaurants.
Restaurants also decided to play their part in this situation of global lock-down by limiting their services to delivery and take-out and completely cutting down on sit-down services. An app called OpenTable, discovered by a graduated from Northeastern University, showed how the citizens have been practicing self-isolation even before the government decided to change the laws. OpenTable, a restaurant reservation app operational in seven countries, recorded how the reservations gradually started deescalating.
In China, people seemed to be less aware of the escalating situations or care less about the public health crisis and continued to dine outside until mid-February. They continued to be ignorant even after the number of casualties in China alone had surpassed the casualties from the epidemic of SARS in 2002-03. Their ignorance led to the accelerated spread of the virus. However, in March, people seemed to be more aware, OpenTable indicated a sharp fall in restaurant reservations as begun self-isolation.
A chart showed how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the restaurant services globally as well as state-by-state. Many states in the U.S. had decided to shut down ahead of others like Massachusetts, California, New York, and Florida. It explicitly showed how people became more aware, playing their own little part to limit the spread of the disease, simply by staying at home!
Subarna Basu