Evaluating the impact of keeping indoor dining closed on COVID-19 rates among large US cities: a quasi-experimental design

  1. Alina S. Schnake-Mahl
  2. Gabriella O’Leary
  3. Pricila H. Mullachery
  4. Vaishnavi Vaidya
  5. Gabrielle Connor
  6. Heather Rollins
  7. Jennifer Kolker
  8. Ana V. Diez Roux
  9. Usama Bilal
1 evaluations Published on
Read the full article Related papers
This article on Sciety

Abstract

Objective

Indoor dining is one of the potential key drivers of COVID-19 transmission. We leverage the heterogeneity in state government preemption of city indoor dining closures, to estimate the impact of keeping indoor dining closed on COVID-19 incidence.

Methods

We obtained case rates and city/state re-opening dates from March to October 2020 in 11 U.S. cities. We categorized cities as (treatment) cities that were allowed by the state to reopen but kept indoor dining closed; and (comparison) cities that would have kept indoor dining closed but were preempted by their state and had to reopen indoor dining.

Results

Keeping indoor dining closed was associated with a 43% (IRR=0.57, 95% CI 0.46 to 0.69) decline in COVID-19 incidence over 4-weeks compared with cities that reopened indoor dining. These results were consistent after testing alternative modeling strategies.

Conclusions

Keeping indoor dining closed contributes to reductions in COVID-19 spread.

Policy Implications

Evidence of the relationship between indoor dining and COVID-19 incidence can inform state and local decisions to restrict indoor dining as a tailored strategy to reduce COVID-19 incidence.

Related articles

Related articles are currently not available for this article.