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Edit: To clarify, it would be best if anyone that feels they should wear a mask in the restaurant while they wait for the food, be allowed.
As someone that thinks masks work, I got a few takes on this.
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In the USA, a private company can legally refuse service to anyone for any reason except a legally protected reason. If a company doesn't like your shirt they don't have to serve you. But if they don't like that you are gay they have to say they don't like your shirt, if they don't serve you because you a gay, thats illegal.
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While it's stupid that they won't serve the doctor wearing a mask, wasn't the doctor going to take their mask of like immediately after sitting at the table to drink something while looking at the menu? At the very most, they would take it off to eat the food right? So they were denied service so that they could at most wear a mask for like 15 mins while they wait for the food to be made.
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If you have to take you mask off to eat, is it really worth it to keep you mask on for as much as possible? Assuming your intention is not to spread disease from yourself to others, how much more harm would an additional 15 mins cause? I honestly don't know but if it's non-trivial, perhaps eating at a sitdown restaurant (which normally takes longer) is morally wrong. Although, not as morally wrong as denying service to someone wearing a mask.
The main point is to minimise the risk of infection of others. Masks do that by limiting the amount of virus you spray info the environment with every breath. The longer you have the mask on, the fewer virus-laden droplets get out, the lower the viral load is for everyone around you.
So to answer your question, yes, keeping the mask off the whole time would have been measurably worse than keeping it on before and after eating. No, getting a meal at an airport is not ethically wrong even if you have to take off the mask to eat and drink. Wearing the mask for as long as possible is the right thing to do because it offers the best chance of not getting other people sick; taking it off to eat balances your needs with the safety of others.
If everyone masked like this (even if it was just when they know they're sick, instead of always), many fewer people would get sick when they go flying.
Yeah that makes sense.
What if the doctor was just going in to get takeout? Or just plain wants to wear a mask while they're not eating? Whose business is it but theirs? I thought Americans believed in freedom.
Half the country's definition of freedom is their right to impose their will onto everyone else.
Which is ironically the exact opposite of the intent, freedom but not fucking with others freedom too.
Yes I agree, they should be allowed to wear a mask when ever they want. And I'll always avoid a business that has some kind of terrible policy like this.
I'm more honestly asking, as someone that does wear masks and avoids going out if I feel sick or know I've been exposed. How much benefit is the 15 min wait it will take to prepare the food?
Great example of actively harmful rhetoric that attempts to undermine the fact that masking works.
I don't see how. Since the covid pandemic I wear masks if I'm sick or know I was around someone that's sick and I have to be somewhere with people. But it would be so much less possible harm if I just stay home during that time. So like if I felt like I needed a mask, I would either not go traveling or I would wear a mask and not eat in public.
The point is that you can't wear a mask while eating or drinking so it's literally 10-15 minutes you're actually talking about wearing a mask in the restaurant.
To your first point: the person could be wearing a mask because they see immunocompromised in some way, which would be a protected class (disability). You can't refuse to serve someone because they're disabled and wearing a mask as medical equipment to supplement their ability to move about in crowds, just like you can't refuse to serve a person because they're disabled and using a wheelchair as medical equipment to supplement their ability to move around in crowds. That's a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Hey that's a great catch.
A store shouldn't deny entry based on something someone does for the benefit their health.
That was my first thought. Isn't indoor dining the riskiest thing you could do during the pandemic?
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