Restaurant toilets are far riskier than the facilities in hotels for catching Covid-19, the Department of Health says.
he Department claims hotel guests are less likely to use the communal toilets than people in restaurants, where more customers are mixing and using fewer facilities.
Indoor dining in restaurants is also blamed as a “major contributor” to the Christmas surge in coronavirus cases.
The claims are contained in a legal defence of the restrictions on indoor dining.
A challenge by the Restaurants’ Association of Ireland and three restaurants to the regulations allowing dining in hotels, while preventing indoor dining in regular restaurants, will be heard in the High Court this morning.
The Government’s defence is set out in an affidavit from the deputy chief medical officer Dr Colette Bonner. One of the differences between hotels and restaurants, identified by Dr Bonner, is the use of toilets by customers.
She points out the number of hotel guests is limited where a restaurant can have multiple sittings. She goes on to outline the toilet facilities in both.
“Each hotel guest would have their own toilet facilities, and there would generally be a number of other toilet facilities throughout hotels; the more limited facilities generally available in non-hotel restaurants present a greater risk by virtue of the greater likelihood of increased mixing between patrons.
“In the circumstances, the decision to differentiate between hotel restaurants and non-hotel restaurants is reasonable at this stage of the gradual reopening of society and the economy,” she says.
The deputy chief medical officer also bats back on the comparison between indoor dining in restaurants being prohibited while shops and indoor activities are open.
“At a most basic level, persons dining indoors will not be wearing face coverings, whereas face coverings are generally required in the other indoor settings,” she says.
Dr Bonner refers to the easing of restrictions last December, which led to the third wave of the pandemic.
“A major contributor to the rapid spread of Covid-19 during this period was the increased social contact in high-risk settings such as dining indoors in restaurants,” she says.
Dr Bonner says the Government has decided on a gradual reopening of society and parts of the economy.
There are 7,000 limited fast-food restaurants, 3,000 full-service restaurants, 7,000 pubs and 2,000 coffee shops in the country – but only 800 hotels.
“By allowing a sub-sector of the indoor dining sector to reopen first – a sub-sector limited to serving guests who are resident in the hotel – the numbers attending indoor restaurants and the number of people travelling from their residence specifically to dine in a communal indoor setting is significantly reduced,” she says.
“One of the principal objectives of measures recommended by Nphet has been to limit as much as possible interactions between individuals in any setting.
“The non-hotel restaurant sector is a large sector and the reality unfortunately is that easing restrictions in respect of the entire sector would result in the mobilisation of large numbers of people and the mixing of large numbers of people from different households in an indoor setting where that would otherwise not occur.”