Fallbrook Deli Owner Chooses To Temporarily Close Business Due To COVID-19 Exposure – KPBS
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Friday, July 23, 2021
By Tania Thorne
Photo by Alexander Nguyen
Above: A sign hanging on the window of AKA Gallery in North Park explaining it is closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic until further notice is pictured taken June 27, 2020.
Dominick’s Sandwiches and Italian Delicatessen in Fallbrook has been open for 38 years.
On Thursday, the owner, Dominick Grossi Jr., decided to temporarily close the deli although there are no mandated guidelines.
He closed because one of his employees had contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19.
“I care about my customers, not just my business, but my customers and my employees. And I thought it was important to be sure that we were doing the right thing because there’s an influx coming in of the new variant and everybody’s kind of blowing it off and pretending like nothings going on but the reality is that people are still getting sick,” said Grossi Jr.
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Grossi Jr. said all deli employees have tested negative for COVID-19 and they plan to reopen on Monday.
Dr. Omar Khawaja, the chief medical officer for Palomar Health said Grossi Jr. made the right choice to close temporarily.
“We see the patients that are still coming in unvaccinated, we’re still seeing people go to the ICU, we’re still seeing people who are dying from COVID,” said Dr. Khawaja. “So for us, it’s very near and dear to our hearts, and anyone who feels like they want to be protective of themselves, of their customers, of their employees, we applaud that.”
Dr. Gene Ma, the chief medical officer at Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside said he doesn’t predict a full shutdown.
“I do think we’re going to have a few more restrictions put back in place, as you’re starting to see some counties go back and say, ‘when you’re indoors you do need to mask,’ those are types of things that are very effective,” he said.
Dr. Ma said the new wave of Delta variant COVID-19 cases is starting a new pandemic.
“Unfortunately, this has truly become a pandemic of the unvaccinated at this point in time. What we’re seeing is these massive surges, relative to what we had a few weeks ago, almost exclusively in those that are unvaccinated becoming hospitalized,” Ma said.
Dr. Ma said Tri-City hospital at one point had zero COVID-19 hospitalizations. They are now averaging between 8-11 cases.
“We’ll see whether Delta continues to spread through, which is largely anticipated,” said Ma. “We don’t expect this is the end of it, we don’t expect that we’ve seen the peak here.”
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