Thank you for the excellent article “Restaurants along Leechburg Road in Lower Burrell run the gamut of compliance with pandemic restrictions”. I was shocked to read that only a few restaurants are following restrictions and that so many owners seem to be willfully ignorant.

One restaurant has a packed parking lot every day. For those who believe it’s a risk worth taking in the short term to make money, don’t use front-line workers to fix you when you let your guard down.

One owner blames the governor. You wouldn’t be “told what to do” and “treated like a child” if you weren’t acting like one.

Another said, “We all know that 99% of the people who get this virus recover from it.” No — 98% do. Hypothetical: Sixty people eat at your restaurant without masks; three of them have the virus. Based on a 25% positivity rate, 15 people catch the virus. One could die from complications; one could become very sick, with millions of dollars in medical bills; one could be a long hauler.

The two Allegheny County sheriff’s deputies who did not wear masks while posing for a photo when they ate at the Crack’d Egg restaurant deserved to be put in quarantine and reassigned (“Crack’d Egg flouts shutdown as deputies quarantined for dining, taking photos with owner,” Dec. 13, TribLIVE). We have people on the internet and social media spreading false information and sowing political division over masks. Even the highest levels of the Justice Department can’t get it right.

Laurie Scheid

New Kensington

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