{"id":50892,"date":"2020-10-18T23:35:59","date_gmt":"2020-10-19T05:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/another-durango-restaurant-dealing-with-novel-coronavirus\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:53:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:53:53","slug":"another-durango-restaurant-dealing-with-novel-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/another-durango-restaurant-dealing-with-novel-coronavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Durango restaurant dealing with novel coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"East
East by Southwest will reopen Wednesday after closing for several days after a waiter-trainee tested positive for COVID-19.<\/span>Patrick Armijo\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

East by Southwest, a popular sushi, sashimi and Asian diner, is closing for several days after a waiter-trainee tested positive for COVID-19.<\/p>\n

Chef-owner Sergio Verduzco said the trainee last worked a three-hour shift Oct. 10 and is a student at Fort Lewis College who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, through the school\u2019s program that offers free nasal swab tests to students.<\/p>\n

The trainee alerted East by Southwest about the positive test early last week, and Verduzco said he opted to close East by Southwest to get all of its employees tested and to clean the restaurant.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe decided it was in the best interest of our employees and our customers to just close, get everyone tested and clean up the place. The health department told us we didn\u2019t have to close \u2013 that we could clean up in off hours \u2013 but we decided it was better just to err on the side of caution and get the place professionally cleaned, and get everyone tested,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Almost all of the East by Southwest\u2019s employees had been tested by Saturday, and as of Sunday no one else had reported a positive test, Verduzco said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a trainee, and he worked a couple of shifts last weekend, three-hour shifts, so he had minimal contact. We all wear masks and follow protocols in place, and we\u2019re pretty confident that no one else has gotten sick. It\u2019s been like eight days, and no one has reported getting sick,\u201d Verduzco said on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Verduzco said the exposure did not affect East by Southwest\u2019s sister restaurant, Mama Silva\u2019s, which continued normal operations.<\/p>\n

East by Southwest is scheduled to reopen with regular hours Wednesday for normal operations \u2013 both take-out and in-person dining, Verduzco said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think at some point or other, most of our businesses are going to see this happen, where you\u2019re going to have to clean the place up and tighten up. We want to make sure that we\u2019re doing everything we can, and we\u2019re following proper protocols,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I think there\u2019s a little bit of fatigue going around. You see it with people; they\u2019re not taking things seriously. But I think that it\u2019s important that we stay cautious.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, FLC reported 14 people tested positive in the last two weeks for the disease caused by the coronavirus.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s more cases in less time than the college has seen since its first week of testing at the end of August. In late August, the college reported about 17 positive COVID-19 cases, all of which turned up during move-in week<\/a> when students living in on-campus housing were required to be tested.<\/p>\n

In mid-September, FLC had no active cases, and as of Oct. 1, a total of 19 people had tested positive for the disease.<\/p>\n

On Friday, FLC\u2019s testing data showed a total of 33 positive cases, an increase of 14 since Oct. 2, and five active positives. An active positive means someone who is currently in isolation, having tested positive within the last 10 days, FLC spokeswoman Lauren Savage said in a previous interview.<\/p>\n

The jump in cases occurred because the virus has spread within households, she said.<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Southwest closes temporarily after trainee tests positive for COVID-19<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50893,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,314,28,29,668,450],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-50892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-downtown-durango","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-public-health","tag-restaurant-and-catering"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50892"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87851,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50892\/revisions\/87851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50892"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=50892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}