PITTSFIELD â Luke Marion succinctly summed up what Berkshire restaurant owners are facing as they head into the winter season.
âItâs been hairy out there,â said the owner of Ottoâs Kitchen & Comfort on East Street.
Itâs not hard to see why. While the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a big chunk of income from local restaurant owners this year, the recent surge of the virus in Massachusetts has caused Gov. Charlie Baker to impose restrictions on state eateries that went into effect Dec. 13.
The guidelines include a 90-minute ban on sit-down dining; dropping the maximum number of people allowed at a table from 10 to six; and requiring customers to wear masks at all times, except when they actively are eating or drinking. Also, patrons are being encouraged to dine only with household members, in order to reduce transmission of the coronavirus.
“Our next facility after that will be Mount Greylock on the 2nd of January, followed by Williamstown Commons on the 4th, and then we have North Adams and Hillcrest Commons on the 8th, she said.
At the county’s largest hospital – Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield – nurses feuded with management over mask policy, with RNs like Mark Brodeur insisting the company supply all frontline workers with the then-scarce N95 masks as potential COVID-19 exposures ran rampant through the staff.
“Since a patient could have been exposed and shedding the virus without any symptoms, at this point in order to reduce the spread it’s important to assume that every single patient you have contact with has the coronavirus in order just to flatten that curve and ensure that the spread is slowed down as much as possible so that all of our resources aren’t overwhelmed at one time,” he told WAMC.