food sharing at outdoor gatherings

[kristin0713]

Our church youth group just announced the first meeting since lockdown.  Meet at the park, play games, eat hotdogs and make s'mores.  Am I overreacting that they should not be serving food like that?  How can they possibly do that safely.  The church just opened last Sunday with a limit of 50 people (mandated by the state), required masks, and pre-packaged, individual communion.  I am baffled that they would organize a youth meeting so irresponsibly.  We have just started meeting friends outside, but I'm not involving food at all.  

[prairiewindmomma]

Similar dynamics here.  Church is not open, but various families have all been mixing and mingling for gatherings between families on the sideline. Because they have been having those bbqs and other events, they don't understand why a group bbq is a problem for some families.

Do I think you're overreacting? No.  We are opting out of in person activities based on our own risk assessment.  I'm having all kinds of awkward conversations left and right.

Do I think others will think you are overreacting? Yup.  Cue also all discussion about masks, gatherings, etc.

It's just a really tricky time socially.

[Pen]

I don’t think you are overreacting. We are in a major pandemic.

[regentrude]

If they are outdoors and distancing, why would food be a problem? 

If they are not distancing,  then I would have an issue with the event entirely. 

Edited June 17, 2020 by regentrude

[prairiewindmomma]

9 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

What is it about the food that you are concerned about?  Restaurants have been doing take out, drive thru and so on the whole time and I am not aware of food having played any part in transmission?

For a virus to transmit, it must attach to respiratory cells.  So, kid with an active virus swipes his nose with his fingers, and ten minutes later feels hungry, and makes himself a hotdog.  Another kid joins him to make food, touches the same bun wrapper package, and then touches her face (like my teen does a bazillion times a day).  Viral particles are now attached to her.

Look, is this avoidable? Yes, someone washes their hands, then gloves, prepares all of the food, and then people come to take prepared plates. (Kind of like a takeout scenario.) But most people aren't that careful.

My friend said she was allowing her daughter (that is my daughter's age) to have some friends come over. They were going to socially distance. I look at the Facebook photos. Clearly not socially distancing (all piled next to each other shoulder to shoulder--8 girls in a four foot square area, eating s'mores).  

I'm meeting my friend tomorrow night in my back yard. She'll let herself in through the side gate. We'll both wear masks.  We'll sit six feet apart. I'm totally comfortable with that.   It's that when you get into large groups, it's hard to get and keep everyone on the same page as far as the basic ground rules go.

My dd had to go to the doctor last week. I told her not to touch her face as we put on our masks to go in to the doctor. She touched her face and her mask or attempted to at least 6 times during the visit and wait.  Do I think realistically she is not going to touch her face in a group setting? No way in heck.

[Ali in OR]

There are things they need to be careful about, like no shared serving utensils, but shared food is not a primary means of spreading the virus. I think there are ways this could be done safely.  I'd be more concerned if anyone was not wearing a mask and if they didn't socially distance.

[Pen]

I should add that the food in itself does not necessarily concern me, but I can’t seem to picture a SD safe way that they would make s’mores, separate safe distance enough to eat get and eat the hot dogs with SD, games with SD etc.  

maybe it can be done, masks during games, 10 foot apart for hot dogs, one at a time to roast marshmallows for s’mores, but it seems highly unlikely that it would be done so. 

[hippiemamato3]

We never eat food at things like this, so I would just allow my DD to play and we'd head out when she got hungry. No biggie. 

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

I'm meeting my friend tomorrow night in my back yard. She'll let herself in through the side gate. We'll both wear masks.  We'll sit six feet apart. I'm totally comfortable with that.   It's that when you get into large groups, it's hard to get and keep everyone on the same page as far as the basic ground rules go.

That’s what I think. Especially when you get a mix of people who care/don’t care to varying degrees about precautions. Even in my little book club with no alcohol (alcohol relaxes people’s defenses), one person was annoyed by masking and masking only really held because the majority wanted masks. 

[ktgrok]

59 minutes ago, kristin0713 said:

Our church youth group just announced the first meeting since lockdown.  Meet at the park, play games, eat hotdogs and make s'mores.  Am I overreacting that they should not be serving food like that?  How can they possibly do that safely.  The church just opened last Sunday with a limit of 50 people (mandated by the state), required masks, and pre-packaged, individual communion.  I am baffled that they would organize a youth meeting so irresponsibly.  We have just started meeting friends outside, but I'm not involving food at all.  

Sharing food and buffets have frequently been listed as one of the riskier activities. (for some reason, they list sharing food as risky, but eating takeout as not risky)

I'm guessing part of the issue is you have to take off your mask to eat. And that people tend to congregate closer than they should around the food. 

[ktgrok]

1 minute ago, happysmileylady said:

I will say, when I see "sharing food"  I am reading that literally.  Like one big bowl of popcorn that everyone is reaching their hands into.  

Maybe...but buffets were mentioned as well. Shared utensils maybe? Also, I'm betting that a bag of marshmallows gets passed around, graham cracker box, etc. Maybe not...but yeah, I'd be concerned that they think it is serious enough to have single serve communion but not single serve food. 

Maybe if they had smores "kits" like a christmas tree farm here does - you get a paper bag with the graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows to make 3 smores or whatever. All prepackaged by people in masks and gloves or clean hands. Same with the dog, etc. 

[regentrude]

7 minutes ago, Ktgrok said:

Sharing food and buffets have frequently been listed as one of the riskier activities. (for some reason, they list sharing food as risky, but eating takeout as not risky)

I'm guessing part of the issue is you have to take off your mask to eat. And that people tend to congregate closer than they should around the food. 

It can't be the mask because you're not eating takeout with a mask either.

I think "sharing" would be literally sharing, everybody serving themselves with the same utensils from the same dishes. That is also the issue with buffets. From what I understand, buffet is fine if there are servers and the diners don't all touch the utensils (and then eat at a distance from one another)

I imagine a safe setup for the gathering where the responsible adults pass out the food and the kids don't all serve themselves. No, I would not consider setting the food on a table and letting all kids have a run at it a safe situation. But serving food can be managed if adults are in charge.

[ktgrok]

2 minutes ago, regentrude said:

It can't be the mask because you're not eating takeout with a mask either.

I think "sharing" would be literally sharing, everybody serving themselves with the same utensils from the same dishes. That is also the issue with buffets. From what I understand, buffet is fine if there are servers and the diners don't all touch the utensils (and then eat at a distance from one another)

I imagine a safe setup for the gathering where the responsible adults pass out the food and the kids don't all serve themselves. No, I would not consider setting the food on a table and letting all kids have a run at it a safe situation. But serving food can be managed if adults are in charge.

Well, with takeout you are at home not in public unmasked while eating. In a group eating without a mask is different than in your own home/car/etc. I think it can be done, if they can get kids to stay far enough away from each other. But trying to supervise a big bunch of kids to keep them distancing sounds like a nightmare for whomever gets that job. 

[mom2scouts]

I've been reading this post and it's making me sad that a simple cookout requires this much planning. This is why people keep telling me that they hate hearing about "the new normal". There's nothing normal about this.🙁

[kristin0713]

49 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

This is not the sort of scenario I was envisioning.  I was thinking that the were adults doing all the food prep, and handing out hotdogs that are already ready to go.  When DH's work does the company picnic (which they aren't doing this year) they have a couple of people doing all the grilling, and the burgers and dogs are already set out on plates.  

Yeah, no.  This would be many hands in all the food all at once, sitting around a fire in close proximity, definitely not SD, and I seriously doubt that anyone will be wearing masks. 

Edited June 17, 2020 by kristin0713

[ktgrok]

So, this was shared in another thread - church that was meeting outdoors, no masks or social distancing, but outdoors....and now the biggest source of positive cases in the county. I think the total is up over 200 positive in a group of 400. https://www.lagrandeobserver.com/coronavirus/covid-19-explosion/article_feb41198-af5c-11ea-b466-9bb49be5644c.html

[GoodGrief]

This is one of those situations where if you feel the risk is too high, you just don't participate. It's reasonable to contact the leaders and tell them the specific elements that bother you as that may be helpful to them in planning future events.

It's not a scenario that would bother me at all.

[ktgrok]

1 minute ago, GoodGrief1 said:

This is one of those situations where if you feel the risk is too high, you just don't participate. It's reasonable to contact the leaders and tell them the specific elements that bother you as that may be helpful to them in planning future events.

 

I agree. I'd probably email and say, hey, thanks for the invite, we miss you all so much, but after reading about the recent spread at an outdoor church gathering, we just aren't comfortable with the risk. 

And then I'd link the article from my last post. 

[SounderChick]

I would ask questions about how they are serving it.  

Our church has been meeting for a couple weeks outdoors, under 100 people, social distanced seating, only 1 person at a time inside to  use the bathroom.  Now they want to start doing childcare inside.  It seems like it would undo all the other protections.

[mom2scouts]

43 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

I dunno....it doesn't sound like an abnormal level of planning to me for a large group cookout.  🤷‍♀️  Maybe for a small family thing, but a large youth group gathering in the park, these don't seem like strange things to be considering, at least not to me. 

Masks or not? Distance? Do we have to serve the food or can people get their own? One by one to make s'mores? Shared serving utensils or condiments? What kind of games allow social distancing? S'more ingredients in individual bags? I've done these kinds of events hundreds of times and these kinds of questions were not the things we considered during planning.

[ktgrok]

1 hour ago, kand said:

I hadn’t seen that this happened outdoors. Do we know for sure that the more recent church meetings or outdoors? What about the wedding and graduation ceremony held at the church recently? Anyone know?    That would be concerning, if so. They are now up to 236 of the church attendees testing positive. This is an example of how being in an area with very few cases doesn’t mean you don’t need to take precautions. They had only a handful of cases and nobody wore any masks, and now they have an explosion of cases. 

It says that the services were outdoors. I don't know about the graduation/wedding, but they have more positive cases than attended those events I think. 

[mom2scouts]

8 hours ago, kand said:

That’s because in the past we weren’t in the midst of a worldwide pandemic? It sucks. But here we are. I can’t tell if you’re thinking these are all unreasonable considerations, or if you’re just lamenting how much our current predicament stinks. If it’s the latter, I’m with you.

Maybe you missed my first post. That was exactly the point I was making. *Because we're in the midst of a worldwide pandemic*, something as simple as a group picnic requires all this extra thought and planning and that makes me sad.

[kristin0713]

I sent a text to the youth pastor about concerns with the food and he said "That's a good point, I will have to think through that, what do you suggest?"  🤦‍♀️  He is really great with the kids but honestly he's like a grown up teenager sometimes.  I guarantee he did not think through any of the following: masks, SD, safe food prep, liability to the church if this ever were to end up being an event where COVID was spread and God forbid a kid ended up dying.  Now personally, I am fine with my kids seeing other kids outside, and I haven't been making them wear masks outside.  I just ask them to keep out of each other's faces.  I am not going to volunteer to run a youth event and think through all the details and really put myself in the place of making decisions for everyone's safety.  But I do want my kids to see their friends again.  So I gave him some suggestions and I'll see what he says.  DH said he would go to make sure it seems ok, although at this point it might be a rain out anyway.