(CNN) — Americans are flocking to their favorite restaurants again, especially those that have set up outdoor and indoor seating that follows the rules of social distancing.
Given that you can't wear a mask while eating, is that enough to protect you from Covid-19? CNN asked infectious disease and indoor environmental quality experts to weigh in.
Is it safer to eat indoors or outdoors at a restaurant?
"Eating outside is less risky than eating inside, if everybody is six feet apart and the wait staff are all wearing masks. That keeps the risk as low as it can be," said infectious disease expert Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville.
"Studies have shown that when you're just talking, the larger [respiratory] droplets don't really travel farther than three to six feet," said Lindsey Marr, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech, who has been studying Covid-19 transmission.
What if people walk by your table while you're eating outside?
"We think that that's not a danger or if it is a very, very small one," Schaffner said. "Because in order for Covid-19 transmission to be at all efficient, what you want is at least 15 minutes of contact face-to-face in an enclosed environment.
"So that risk should be very low, but those passers-by should be masked," he added.
It's always going to be less dangerous outside, where the virus can dissipate into the air, say experts. To illustrate that, imagine for a moment that the virus is the smoke from a cigarette.
"If you put somebody smoking inside a room, the first puff puts a little bit of smoke out. The second puff puts a little bit more out, and it builds on the first one," said Erin Bromage, an associate professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
"The smoke in that room builds up unless you have good filtration and good air exchange," said Bromage, a CNN contributor who wrote a blog post in early May -- "The Risks -- Know Them -- Avoid Them," that got over 13 million views in one week.
However, Bromage said, when you're outside and someone takes a puff, you get a blast of smoke but then it's over. You get another blast and it's over.
"It's not an accumulating threat, like we see inside," he said.
Do 6-foot spacing and partitions protect you indoors?
"You have to have good ventilation in that bar or restaurant," she added. "And since I can't wear a mask while I'm eating, I'm just avoiding indoor restaurants until this is over."
As should anyone in high-risk categories, experts suggested.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently added to its growing list of those who may be hardest hit by Covid-19: pregnant women, the elderly, people with heart, lung or kidney disease, diabetes, immune disorders, people with moderate to severe asthma and those with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher, which includes 42% of
