Posted on 02/14/2020 5:33:25 AM PST by davikkm
China’s southern port city of Guangzhou banned dining in restaurants, local media reported Wednesday, as a measure to prevent the novel coronavirus epidemic in the country from becoming worse.
At press time, China has documented nearly 60,000 cases of coronavirus nationwide, at least one in every province. The majority of the over 1,000 deaths caused occurred within China, but patients have died in Hong Kong, Japan, and the Philippines.
The ban went into affect at 9 p.m. Wednesday local time, the South China Morning Post reported:
The ban on dining in applies to restaurants, but employees can continue to have meals at their company canteens. And while residents can still get takeaways from restaurants, they have been encouraged to do this online, and have their meals delivered, rather than collecting their orders.
Group gatherings have also been banned in the city, and according to Nanfang Daily, some 126 banquets that would have involved more than 90,000 people have been cancelled by authorities already. The authorities did not say how long the measures would be in place.
Guangzhou is not the only city in Guangdong province to bring in a ban on dining in restaurants – Futian district in Shenzhen, Xiangzhou in Zhuhai, Foshan and Zhongshan have all taken the same step.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
If this is the information that they’re releasing, imagine what the situation on the ground must look like...
That's probably why someone is trying to re-name it.
The REAL QUESTION is what will the world look like after this is over.
Will we go back to tightly-packed restaurants, as if nothing ever happened? Will people as willing to spend 16 hours on an airplane with 450 strangers? Will anyone ever get on a cruise ship again?
Personally, I think we’ll be looking world, once we come out of this - at least for those who make it through.
I would guess that restaurant usage is way down anyway out of fear of contagion. You can’t eat through a surgical mask. And, you can’t be out in public without wearing one.
So why not make it official by shutting the restaurants?
China’s quarterly GDP growth figure is either going to be sad or complete fantasy. Or maybe, both.
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NO BAT SOUP FOR YOU!
The PRC's 4Q2019 GDP growth was near its 30-yar low. With numbers like that, many foreign investors may have been re-considering whether the PRC is worth it or not.
Perhaps, the PRC, knowing their economy wasn't that strong fundamentally, is knowingly pushing these economically-crushing policies in the midst of the pandemic. That way, investors may think "well, yea, PRC's GDP was awful in the first quarter but that was all due to that virus thing...fundamentally the PRC is still ok, right?" The PRC will certainly blame coronavirus for any bad economic data in the forthcoming months, many people will lap that up, and not see the possible fundamental cracks in their economic model.
It's enough to make Rahm proud. Is this speculation? Of course. And certainly we should be prudent and vigilant on the shores of America about the potential for this virus to be nasty within our borders. But being of the mindset that coronavirus will wipe us out in the US is just as speculative.
I have eaten in many good restaurants in Guangzhou over the years - some of them foreign-owned. When forced to close for a time, many will likely never re-open. In a few weeks, we may be looking at a similar action in US cities.
If you’ve never been in China or some other Asian countries, it’s difficult to understand just how important public dining is to their culture and economy. Eating out is not just a daily occurrence, but with many young people it’s their usual way of eating. Most young people don’t have cooking skills beyond boiling water for instant noodles. The sheer number of people involved in the restaurant business, as well as the thousands of street side food stalls in every major city, means that there are many poorer people who have had their sole source of income drastically reduced or eliminated. And then there are the people who supply the restaurants, who rent space, etc. The Chinese economy will not survive a long-term shutdown of public eating establishments.
Both Toronto and Vancouver have large Chinatown areas, as well as other more modern areas where Chinese restaurants dominate. There have been stories from both cities of restaurants suffering as much as a 70% decline in customers. And it’s not primarily traditional Canadians avoiding anything Chinese, its Chinese-Canadians who are staying home. Go to a good Chinese restaurant in Toronto and 95% of the customers are Chinese. Uber Eats and other food delivery services are doing great business, but this eats into the profits of the restaurants. There will likely be quite a few of these places that won’t survive a sustained slowdown.
Tasty too!
Actually, I was in Guangzhou for a week some seven years ago.
Yes, there was a ton of restaurants!
But, even though I was accompanied by (and visiting) one of my sons who spent some time there teaching English, who also spoke passable Mandarin, I didn’t get the insight into the importance of outside dining to locals.
Thanks for your input.
But still, wouldn’t you expect restaurant usage to have fallen way off under the current circumstances, even if it weren’t officially banned?
[And it’s not primarily traditional Canadians avoiding anything Chinese, its Chinese-Canadians who are staying home. ]
Our newspaper runs a daily column of snippets of news from 100, 75, 50, & 25 years ago. Last year there were lots of stories about the “Spanish” flu. Seems like China is doing pretty much the same things that we were doing 100 years ago. That is a bit worrisome to me.
Of course. It’s happening in every Chinatown in North America. People are avoiding restaurants even though the current risk is minute.
Yeah. We have a great take out Chinese restaurant near us. Very authentic... the chefs in the back are speaking Mandarin (usually its Cantonese, but I asked). They look like they’d go back and forth to China for Lunar New Year. Ummm... my wife lost her appetite.
Further evidence that this is a LOT more serious than the Chinese are admitting to. This is a thousand or more miles from Wuhan, and they’re shutting down an entire industry in a VERY major city (and I’m sure that this is not the only place). This means no wages for the tens or hundreds of thousands of employees, no orders of supplies, no orders of food, etc. It alone would be a big economic problem, but it is just being tossed on to the already large bonfire that is burning over there.
Pay no attention to what the Chinese say, pay attention to what they DO. Every action that they’ve taken points to a highly contagious and highly lethal disease that has gotten out of control.
“Will we go back to tightly-packed restaurants, as if nothing ever happened? Will people as willing to spend 16 hours on an airplane with 450 strangers? Will anyone ever get on a cruise ship again?”
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