a) I think most people have realized these types of rules are toothless. You're not going to go around knocking on doors on Thanksgiving (nor would it likely be

a) I think most people have realized these types of rules are toothless. You're not going to go around knocking on doors on Thanksgiving (nor would it likely be legal do so). Everywhere I've heard about was strongly urging people not to gather for the holidays outside of your household. b) Outdoor dining is tricky, and a lot of that is a government created problem. Outdoor dining at truly open tables, properly spaced with good ventilation is probably fairly low risk. At least where I live though, restaurants went out and bought large, fully enclosed tents and filled them with tables to comply with the letter of the law. Unfortunately these don't have very good ventilation on average. The virus also survives longer in cold, dry air so during winter you could logically make the argument that these tented dining situations are perhaps less safe than indoor dining. As I said, this is a government created problem, since they probably should have given guidance on the best practices for outdoor dining before restaurants went out and spent thousands of dollars on them, but they likely made the political calculation that its easier to just close everything. There's also the possibility that outdoor dining makes young people from separate households (say 6 twenty year old friends) gather together at one table without masks, but I suspect that if they're doing that at restaurants now they'd just move to someone's home and order pizza when the restaurants closed.