Philly Imposes New COVID Restrictions Through 2021
PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia officials Monday issued new restrictions for restaurants, gyms, gatherings, and more in an effort to stop the coronavirus surge in the city. Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley and Mayor Jim Kenney said new restrictions will go into effect Friday and last through at least Jan. 1, 2021.
Among the new restrictions are a ban on indoor dining, and outdoor dining will be limited to four people from the same household at a table. The number of people at outdoor events will be limited to 10 percent occupancy, or 10 people per 1000 square feet, and a cap on large spaces of no more than 2,000 people, which means no fans at sporting events. Gyms, museums, libraries, arcades, bowling alleys, casinos, and movie and performance theaters will be closed. Plus, there will be a ban on any indoor gatherings of any size in both public and private spaces.
Retails business will be permitted, but with a cap on five people per 1,000 square feet of space. Businesses are asked to enforce the capacity limit as well as enforce mask usage.
While the new restrictions go into effect Friday, Farley urged Philadelphians to voluntarily start impose these restrictions now. "With these sorts of epidemics," he said, "the earlier you intervene, the more successful you are."
Additionally, youth community and school sports have been canceled. Religious institutions can stay open with limited occupancy, but are encouraged to hold services online, officials said.
Colleges and high schools are prohibited from in-person instruction but childcare, elementary and middle schools are allowed to have in-person instruction with masks and distancing.
The new rules were imposed locally. There are no plans to bring back the red, yellow and green coronavirus phases that were used in the spring, Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine said Monday.
Officials in Philadelphia indicated there would be a move toward more strict measures as cases rise to alarming levels. Last week, Farley said even a "complete lockdown" is on the table to curb coronavirus spread in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia's coronavirus case count reached 54,607 Monday with 2,564 new cases reported since Friday, and eight additional deaths were reported Monday bringing the death toll in the city to 1,917.
Farley said the previous week saw a 13.4 percent positivity rate, which is increasing, and that by the year's close the city could see about 3,000 new cases per day. Cases are doubling about every 17 days, he said.
Kenney said the average case number has jumped at least 700 percent in the last two months, and hospitalizations have jumped 600 percent in the last seven weeks. According to Farley, the city has more coronavirus hospitalizations now than on April 7, about three weeks after the city was shut down.
"We're about to exceed the peak of about 1,000 patients we had in April," Farley said, warning the city's hospitals could exceed total capacity by the end of the year. "If we don't do something to change the trajectory of this epidemic, the hospitals will become full, they’ll have difficulty treating people, and we'll have between several hundred and 1,000 deaths just by the end of this year."
A model shows the city will see between 700 and 1,400 additional deaths by the end of 2020
Last week, the city saw a higher daily new case average than the worst week in April.
"I believe we will get through it if we act with urgency like we did in the spring," Kenney said."
Farley urged neighboring counties in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware to impose similar restrictions.
"We all use the same hospitals, we interact with each other, we're all in this together," he said.
Philadelphians are urged to stay home unless absolutely necessary, wear masks, and stay six feet apart whenever possible.
The state reported 3,842 new cases Monday, bringing the total number of cases identified in Pennsylvania to 269,613.
Gov. Tom Wolf joined New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont and Delaware Gov. John Carney for a virtual emergency summit on the escalating coronavirus pandemic.
No official announcement regarding new restrictions was made following the meeting and specifics on what was discussed were not immediately available.
This article originally appeared on the Philadelphia Patch
