Philadelphia expands indoor dining to 50% on Friday

PHILADELPHIA - The Philadelphia health commissioner announced good news for restaurants and diners on Tuesday.

Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley said the city's restaurants could increase their indoor dining capacity on Friday.

On September 9, the city allowed the indoor dining room to resume with restrictions such as a 25% capacity limit.

But as of Friday, restaurants will be able to have 50% of their capacity indoors, Farley said.

The new capacity limits correspond to the current restrictions in Pennsylvania.

And under the governor's rules, restaurants that want to increase their capacity must self-certify under state and CDC guidelines in addition to city rules.

Indoor dining restrictions that are similar to or exceed federal restrictions for indoor dining.

Restrictions on eating indoors include:

• Guests must wear masks when not seated at a table.
• a capacity limit of 25%;
• only four guests per table;
• six feet of space between tables;
• Without bar service, alcohol is only available in the same transaction as a meal.
• Indoor meal orders will be final called at 23:00
• Facilities must be closed before midnight;
• Physical barriers, such as sneeze guards or partitions, are installed in restaurant kitchens, as well as at cash registers, restaurants, and food collection areas where it is difficult to get socially 6 feet apart
• Employees are screened for symptoms before each shift and prevented from staying on site if they show symptoms of a coronavirus.
• Employees must wear masks and face protection.

Any facility that does not comply with these restrictions will be closed.

"The decrease in the number of cases we see shows the success of our strategy," Farley said. "I said we would slowly and carefully lower our restrictions as the number of cases continued to decrease, and we are now. If people continue to follow our advice, I think we can relax the restrictions further."

Farley said there wasn't an exact number in the coronavirus data that would cause the city to suspend indoor activities. However, he said the city would consider shutting down the indoor dining room if the number of cases or the percentage of positive tests increases dramatically and the evidence suggests the increase is related to the indoor dining room.

Fifty-nine new cases of coronavirus were reported on Tuesday. However, the Ministry of Health also added 376 previously unidentified cases to the city's database.

The total number of cases since the pandemic began is now 36,887. The previously unidentified cases were added as a result of comparing data from the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and the Pennsylvania Department of Health. and they come from tests done March through August.

Another death was reported in Philadelphia. This brings the number of Philadelphia residents who succumbed to the virus to 1,801. Of the total of 1,801 deaths, 889, or 49 percent, were residents of long-term care facilities.

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