ZURICH (Reuters) – The largest doctor in the Swiss mountainous region, which includes St. Moritz and Davos, said Tuesday that restaurants would not rely on plastic viewfinders for his COVID-19 infection workers, saying they “create a false sense of security.” “
The warning, from the canton of Grisons bordering Italy and Austria, raises questions about the reopening of some restaurants, hotels and other companies that depend on tourism.
In Germany, some states allow visors for service personnel, while others require face masks. Swiss restaurants do not require all staff to wear facial protections, even if some have followed them.
The Grisons cantonal doctor, Marina Jamnicki, said the face mask to eat that cannot be 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) away from the others was a better solution than the transparent plastic screens secured with a blindfold.
“An investigation of the cases and the trace on which the disease spreads shows that the plastic viewfinders used in gastronomy provide sufficient protection,” his office said. “People dressed in visors were infected.”
The Federal Health Office returned questions about possible action, given Jamnicki’s warning.
Marc Tischhauser, director of the Grisons restaurant industry association, told Reuters that the doctor’s caution recalled that eye visors play a “complementary role” in protecting against COVID-19 infections, and that social distance and face mask are also necessary to be effective.
The World Health Organization last month, rules requiring the use of masks in public, while acknowledging only evidence of observation, not clinical studies, have shown that they aid the spread of the new coronavirus.
The German Robert Koch Institute of Public Health (RKI) said the masks are larger because they “slow down the speed of breathing or the dispersion of saliva and mud droplets,” while viewers “only capture droplets that fall on the screen.”
All 16 German states have the final say on the requirements.
In Hesse, where Frankfurt is located, service personnel can wear visors, while the Bavarian physical workplace advises that they can only be worn “for a mask that covers the mouth and nose”.
A debate is taking a stand in the United States.
Many airlines in European countries, Germany, Italy and France, require a mask that covers the nose and mouth. Qatar Airways asks passengers to wear a mask and a mask.
Reporting through John Miller at Zand Ilona Wissenbach in Frankfurt, Alexander Huebner in Munich and Maria Sheahan and Markus Wacket in Berlin; Editing through Catherine Evans
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