Boston announces restaurants, businesses, houses of worship can open to 40% capacity

Boston restaurants, shops, houses of worship, gyms, offices and more can open back up to 40% of full capacity — as opposed to the current 25% — starting Monday, the city announced.

Mayor Martin Walsh’s office said this was being put in place “given the improvement in the number of COVID-19 cases and the City’s positivity rate over the past few weeks.” This brings the city in line with the state, which made the same announcement Thursday.

“Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve made decisions based on science and data. The data right now tells us things are moving in the right direction,” Walsh said in a statement. “While Massachusetts continues to expand access to vaccines and our numbers trend modestly downward, we need to stay vigilant. Please keep wearing face coverings, washing your hands, staying 6 feet apart and please do not gather with people you don’t live with.”

This applies to restaurants, houses of worship, stores, offices, gyms, close-contact personal services, driving schools, indoor golf, lodging common areas, movie theaters and museums. Employees don’t count toward the total for close-contact personal services or restaurants.

This will take effect after Super Bowl Sunday, but before Valentine’s Day.

Boston’s coronavirus metrics have continued to improve over the past couple of weeks, according to city data. The most recent report, from Wednesday, showed the seven-day positive test rate at 6.2%, down from a high of 8.9% a month ago. Similarly, daily cases continued to drop, and have come down close to what the city deems the “threshold for concern” for that metric.

The percent positivity still remains above its threshold for concern of 5%. Various hospitalization metrics including free beds in the ICU and among all hospitals and total free beds also remain above their thresholds, but are improving.

The city remains in step one of Phase Three of the Reopening Massachusetts plan. Current restrictions on gathering sizes remains the same, limiting gathering sizes to 10 people indoors and 25 people outdoors. The gatherings limit applies to private homes, event venues and public spaces, Walsh’s office said.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3pVcLNc