People do go into restaurants with viruses though, and restaurants get treated very harshly should people get infected from someone or some foodstuff there.
Restaurant's don't create viruses, they just pass them on, usually unwittingly (and sometimes despite good hygiene practices) but one nasty outbreak traced to a restaurant can destroy a reputation (and kill a business).
The classic case being Heston Blumetnthal's 'Fat Duck' restaurant where 240 people suffered gastroenteritis (nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea) due to norovirus, probably carried in Oysters:
Who is to blame here? Maybe the Oyster farmer, but maybe the distributor. It could have been a single employee with norovirus in the restaurant (or anywhere in the distribution chain).
Most likely no-one did anything wrong and this was just "one of those things"
"We also received full support by our insurers who found no fault in our practices following a report from a leading UK independent specialist. There is still no guaranteed safety measure in place today to protect the general public with regards to shellfish and viral contamination. For this reason we still do not serve oysters or razor clams at the Fat Duck."
Fat Duck was criticised for poor food hygiene practices.
> Restaurant's don't create viruses
They can dramatically amplify the viral / bacteria presence though. Norovirus is pretty nasty (potentially fatal). Very small amounts of norovirus will cause illness. This is why excellent hygiene is needed in restaurants.
Fat Duck was slow to respond to the incident; they had staff working who should not have been working due to sickness; they were using the wrong cleaning products.
I think that's a fairly harsh reading of the report.
Saying "Fat Duck was criticised for poor food hygiene practices" is a little different to saying "Several weaknesses in procedures at the restaurant may have contributed to ongoing transmission."
The report simply says that they relied too heavily on using alcohol gels which don't work so well on norovirus.
It also says that they are unsure if it was The Fat Duck's staff that continued to infect customers or if the Oysters they continued to use continued to be infected.
Yes, excellent hygiene is needed in Restaurants but excellent hygiene won't always stop a norovirus.
One thing not mentioned here (that I suspect might be a factor) is that restaurants that serve tasting menus are more at risk of causing an outbreak like this. If everyone eats a large number of identical courses each with a diverse number of ingredients the possibility of one of those ingredients infecting a large number of people is surely greatly increased.
> one nasty outbreak traced to a restaurant can destroy a reputation (and kill a business).
> The classic case being Heston Blumetnthal's 'Fat Duck' restaurant...
The Fat Duck is still open, has three Michelin stars and is booked out months in advance. Possibly not the best example of a reputation being destroyed or a business being killed.
Restaurant's don't create viruses, they just pass them on, usually unwittingly (and sometimes despite good hygiene practices) but one nasty outbreak traced to a restaurant can destroy a reputation (and kill a business).
The classic case being Heston Blumetnthal's 'Fat Duck' restaurant where 240 people suffered gastroenteritis (nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea) due to norovirus, probably carried in Oysters:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/dec/05/fat-duc...
Who is to blame here? Maybe the Oyster farmer, but maybe the distributor. It could have been a single employee with norovirus in the restaurant (or anywhere in the distribution chain).
Most likely no-one did anything wrong and this was just "one of those things"
"We also received full support by our insurers who found no fault in our practices following a report from a leading UK independent specialist. There is still no guaranteed safety measure in place today to protect the general public with regards to shellfish and viral contamination. For this reason we still do not serve oysters or razor clams at the Fat Duck."