Survey: Local doctors say it's still too soon to eat indoors, go to movies and concerts

Across the state, restrictions have been lifted on a number of establishments and capacity has increased at museums, sporting events, restaurants.

This comes more than a year after Governor Roy Cooper put provisions in place as COVID surged.

Even though one out of every four North Carolinians is at least partially vaccinated and things are opening up, we aren’t in the clear just yet. Some local doctors weighed in on what they think is safe to do at this point.

WRAL sent an informal survey to doctors at and medical researchers around the Triangle, asking them what they feel comfortable doing right now. Six responded to our request.

Every doctor said they wouldn’t eat indoors at this point. When it comes to outdoors - the answers were somewhat split. Half of the doctors said that’s something they’d do but the other half said they’d consider it if the seats were adequately spaced out.

What about a Canes game -- which now has 50 percent capacity? All doctors said no. Movie theaters: they’re also all passing on that one.

Outdoor venues like the Red Hat Amphitheater can have 50 percent of concertgoers. Most doctors said that’s not something they’d attend now but one doctor said maybe as long as some seats are blocked off to allow for social distancing.

Since most of the doctors we spoke with told us these activities aren't worth the risk just yet, we wanted to know when they'd feel comfortable doing things that used to be normal. The resounding answer - when the daily case count goes down even lower and the vaccination rate increases.