Looking for an excuse not to cook dinner and order takeout instead? White House advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci regularly orders takeout food during the pandemic as a way to support local businesses in the area.
"I feel badly about restaurants losing business," Fauci told CNN Sunday. "And I feel it's almost a neighborly obligation to keep neighborhood restaurants afloat." Fauci lives in Northwest Washington D.C. with his wife, Christine Grady, 67, a nurse bioethicist.
"Even though I can cook at home, several nights a week I go out for takeout purely to support those places," Fauci said. Indeed, restaurants and bars have relied on takeout and delivery options to survive the Covid-19 pandemic shutdowns.
As of September, more than 100,000 restaurants and bars had permanently closed in the U.S. due to the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in an estimated $240 billion in lost revenue, according to the National Restaurant Association.
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While many restaurants are now open for in-person indoor dining at reduced capacity, Fauci has said that it is still risky.
"If you go indoors in a restaurant — whatever capacity, 25[%], 50%, or what have you — indoors absolutely increases the risk," Fauci told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell on Sept. 11. "If we want to get back to the normal existence of being able to enjoy being in a restaurant, the best way to do that is to get the community level of infection at the lowest level possible."
Until then, picking up food to-go from a restaurant is a safer option. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the risk of getting Covid-19 from handling food from restaurants, takeout or drive-thru is believed to be very low.
And if you're wondering what kind of food Fauci likes to order: "Our favorite meal together has to be pasta," he told InStyle in a joint interview with his wife in July. "Pasta and a glass of wine."
