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If this comes to the US my disaster preparedness plans will be seriously compromised... In theory drive through should be the best possible food mechanism in t

• martinald 7y ago
  The problem isn't that, it's making the food itself in mcdonalds is too risky in terms of infection. You have loads of people in a small space. Nearly all restaurant kitchens of all types are like this; so I really can't see how any takeout services can operate safely. Maybe very low volume ones with one chef and one person giving out the food. But not sure how possible that is, I assume many require someone preparing food as well as cooking it.
  • robjan 7y ago
    Doesn't this risk exist with all types of food factory?
    • martinald 7y ago
      I think less so. Most other food production is done in production lines with from what I've seen more separation between people. It's also highly automated where it can be, and in huge warehouses in industrial areas, not tiny cramped kitchens with poor ventilation in cities.
    • catalogia 7y ago
      What about fresh produce sitting on store shelves, where people can touch and breath on it? (I say this while eating a hotdog I just got from 7-11)
      • finaliteration 7y ago
        We’re still buying fresh produce because there’s plenty of it and we don’t have a ton of space to store frozen/canned food. I’ve been washing produce with soap and water for 20 seconds and then rinsing it before eating it. We also roast most of our vegetables so the risk seems small, to me.
        • o-__-o 7y ago
          I am debating Ordering a pizza right now and I was thinking of putting it in the oven for 2-3minvwhen it got here then store it in a container I have at the house and discard the box as usual. I see no flaws in this plan.
          • DoreenMichele 7y ago
            From what I have been seeing, it appears to live longer on cardboard than other surfaces. In my experience as an immunocompromised person, the cardboard box is the biggest problem. Dispose of the box carefully and wash your hands afterwards. The pizza is probably fine, though it's fine to cook it a bit longer for good measure too. You can (potentially) order from a service with contactless delivery to reduce your risk. For example, Little Caesar's will let you leave instructions to leave it on the porch or whatever.
  • dbbk 7y ago
    Is it possible to reconfigure the space, perhaps take over some of the dining area?
    • martinald 7y ago
      I doubt it. You need gas supply, water supply, etc. It's not a quick job to reconfigure, plus I doubt many builders/plumbers will be available to physically do the work. I think most operators are just throwing in the towel; probably the numbers don't make sense if you have a dining area that is empty, and I imagine takeaway/drive through orders are down sharply as govt is saying only absolutely essential trips are allowed. Delivery orders were probably up sharply though I imagine. Also many takeaway places don't have a dining room to reconfigure into.
  • jakear 7y ago
    I don’t think it’s a matter of finding something 0-risk as much as it is reducing risk as much as possible. And I think drive through with 0 contact between patrons and employees helps with that. I’ve been in crowds just two times in the past couple weeks, both were at grocery stores.
• pengaru 7y ago
  Everyone should have at least one large sack of rice and beans in dry storage. Expecting an operation like McDonalds to maintain enough spare capacity to provide everyone's emergency sack of rice and beans in the event of a disaster is completely idiotic.
  • jakear 7y ago
    I was being a bit facetious. The fact of the matter is there exist people who have not prepped, and grocery stores are a complete mess. Drive through solves both these problems, as letting those that behaved “completely idiotically” either die or come join in the crowds at grocery stores isn’t a great option.
    • pengaru 7y ago
      Exposing yourself to the people handling the food at fast food restaurants for a single meal is not what I'd call a remotely wise trade-off vs. a single grocery trip bringing home literally a month of calories in rice and beans. Consider the likelihood that whoever prepared your fast-food took public transportation and lives in cramped, shared housing, and is so desperate for income they're working at a fast-food joint. You can't even reasonably disinfect what you receive from the drive-thru before consuming it.
      • jakear 7y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22660365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22660365
    • makomk 7y ago
      Also, there's a lot of people in London who don't really have the space to keep large stockpiles of food in, or necessarily much in the way of decent cooking facilities.
      • arcticbull 7y ago
        You can store months of dry rice and canned food under your bed alone. You're talking about survival planning, not glamping. Most adult humans can survive upwards of 2 months without any food whatsoever if you've got adequate access to water.
• notatoad 7y ago
  >Sure as hell beats a bunch of people in the same supermarket breathing all over the produce and right on the cashier. going to macdonalds twice a day is definitely riskier than getting groceries at the supermarket once a week. most of the food is packaged, and the stuff that isn't can be thoroughly washed before eating it. even for the stuff that isn't packaged and can't be washed, coronavirus isn't known to last longer than three days, so you can just buy it and let it sit. contrast that to the multiple different staff preparing your food, which you then immediately stick in your mouth.
  • jakear 7y ago
    That’s true. Really, the ideal solution would be repurposing existing drive through setups for grocery purchases. Best of both worlds.
  • makomk 7y ago
    The trouble is that realistically, it's not possible to get by with a single weekly shop in the UK right now. A lot of supermarket shelves are empty due to everyone buying more than they usually would, and even when they're not there are purchase quantity restrictions that make it hard to get a full week's shopping in.
    • jimmaswell 7y ago
      And Europe as a whole tends to buy groceries every other day, so I'd suspect stores aren't prepared to provide for any degree of bulk buying. Maybe it'll catch on more after this debacle - grocery stores are generally running fine in the US besides toilet paper and the odd other thing being sold out sometimes.
      • toyg 7y ago
        It’s not the stores, imho. From my experience of UK supermarkets in the last week, they’ve basically caught up with most stuff they are directly responsible for or that is produced very close to their needs. Bread is now there, vegetables are there, milk is there. What is dramatically lacking is processed food. I expect that’s because those items have much lower elasticity in their production: if you know you’ll sell X cans of tuna per year, you’ll build a plant that makes X * 1.3 or thereabout; when demand suddenly spikes to 3X or more, there is no time to build another plant (and even if there were, you might not want to invest into something that is probably temporary). Same for meat: you cannot grow extra cows in a couple of weeks. There is a lot of pressure on supermarkets at the moment which should probably be directed at the larger food industry.
• nimchimpsky 7y ago
  if ?
• tzs 7y ago
  > In theory drive through should be the best possible food mechanism in terms of risk to the workers (and patrons). If they could arrange for contactless payment (already possible, just affix a tap reader to the side of the drive through window), I don’t know if they support this in the UK, but for the US McDonald’s has an excellent mobile app. You can order and pay using the app. You can pick up by going through the drive through and giving the 4 character order code from the app, or by parking in a spot reserved for mobile order pickup and then entering the spot number in the app and they bring the food to your car. If you do the latter, and roll down the backseat window while keeping the driver window closed, and ask the person to place the food on the backseat, that should be pretty safe as far as person to person transmission goes.
  • klipt 7y ago
    > ask the person to place the food on the backseat, that should be pretty safe Certainly sir achoo oh excuse me I sneezed in your car, so sorry, good you thing you have a partition between the front and back seats, oh wait you don't?
  • matthewheath 7y ago
    Yes, we have this too — well, the order pickup from the mobile app. I assume you have to park up to get the order, but I've never tried it myself.
• rootusrootus 7y ago
  > Sure as hell beats a bunch of people in the same supermarket breathing all over the produce and right on the cashier Fred Meyer, at least, allows you to buy a whole list of groceries and they will bag it all up and meet you outside in the parking lot. Not a bad way to limit exposure. Not everyone has FM, obviously, but I'm sure there are equivalents across the country. I'd start by checking any Kroger or Kroger subsidiaries.
• seniorcardigan 7y ago
  I recall many a Kentucky Fried Chicken and Popeyes in less than great areas having a mechanical container the worker placed food in instead of opening the window. They were for safety, I havent seen them in almost 15 years but im sure some is still using them