It’s suddenly racist to say “Wuhan virus,” so don’t use that phrase when you pass along the following story. And just to save you some outrage: It’s not a joke, and I’m not making it up.
A Chinese restaurant with three locations in California is taking no chances amid the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, and has started taking every customer’s temperature in hopes of screening for the virus.
Sichuan Impression, a restaurant serving traditional Chinese fare at restaurants in Tustin, Alhambra and West Los Angeles, is officially screening diners for the coronavirus in what’s reportedly a first for the area.
On Friday, manager Summer Guo checked temperatures at the Tustin location, ready to politely turn away any would-be diners with temperatures of 99.8 F or higher, The Orange County Register reports.
But when I say Chinese restaurants should start taking people’s temperatures just to be on the safe side…
Seriously though, this doesn’t seem like an unreasonable precaution. If people are scared about the Wuhan virus coronavirus and they’re not going out as much, this makes sense. For a business owner trying to increase foot traffic, “You won’t get sick here” seems like a good selling point. I have no idea whether the media frenzy over this is warranted, but why not be safe? Better than sorry.
This is in California, though, so it seems inevitable that somebody will sue for not being allowed in. We’re not supposed to discriminate against anybody for any reason, even if it might send us to the hospital.
As a near-agoraphobe myself, it doesn’t seem like a bad idea in general to be more aware of how diseases like this can spread. More thorough hand-washing, “social distancing,” being more aware of your surrounding environment, all that stuff is a good idea even when you’re not scared of getting the plague. Of course, if this Wuhan virus coronavirus turns out not to be as bad as the media keeps telling us it is, everybody will just go back to being disgusting slobs in public.
Keep calm and carry hand sanitizer!
