Posted on 01/21/2021 6:09:47 PM PST by matt04
A curfew mandating restaurants and most other businesses to close by 9:30 p.m. lifts on Monday, but industries hit hard by the coronavirus will have to live with customer capacity caps of 25% for another two weeks, Gov. Charlie Baker announced.
“Vaccines are reaching residents, positive case rates have stabilized. Those trends are moving in the right direction. As a result, we believe it’s time and it’s OK to start gradually easing on the restrictions we put in place,” Baker said during his regular coronavirus briefing at the State House on Thursday.
“Allowing diners to have more time to enjoy time out of the house, in a supervised, regulated and proven safe environment is a great step to moving away from unregulated private gatherings. We also look forward to increasing our capacity limits shortly,” said Bob Luz of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association.
Restaurants, gyms, casinos, offices, churches, libraries, movie theaters, arcades, golf facilities, museums and most other businesses had to cut capacity to 25% of their maximum on Dec. 26 in response to state regulators after holiday gatherings sent coronavirus numbers skyrocketing.
Baker said the decision led many to call him “Scrooge on social media” but added that the clamp down on businesses appears to be working.
“Today, three weeks into 2021, our public health data is trending in a better direction in some categories, like hospitalizations and the percent of positive COVID cases for the first time in a long time,” Baker said.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonherald.com ...
Next thing you will see Cuomo will be relaxing restrictions in New York to help out his buddy Joe with a successful start to his presidency so he will get some of federal bail out money.
By the summer these never trumpers won’t even be able to spell COVID
If he runs for the senate we should be behind him for 2 terms. It’s Mass.
On Dec 26 MA had:
6.9% positivity rate
7,677 cases and a 4,333 per day average
47 deaths
2156 in hospitals
On Jan 21 MA had:
5.6% positivity rate
4514 cases and 4,056 per day average
67 death
2152 in hospitals
So Baker suddenly decides restraints which were too dangerous to be open and straining the heath care system are suddenly safe with a nearly identical average of cases and admitted patients, an INCREASE in deaths and time to open up.
I just want them to end, so people can have more freedom, I don’t carex who does it at this point.
And don't you dare to contest the status quo.
A curfew mandating restaurants and most other businesses to close by 9:30 p.m. lifts on Monday,
A day to late. The AFC Championship game is Sunday night at 6:40 pm. Last week’s game ended about 9:40 pm. I know because I was still at a Maine restaurant illegally watching the end of the game (staff was cleaning up).
It always seems like when he loosened restrictions, he’ll announce it mid week but say it won’t start till Monday, because the virus knows if you open your restaurant past 9:30 on Friday versus Monday, but if he’s tightening restrictions he’ll announce it on Wednesday and have it go into effect on Thursday.
The “excuse“ I’ve heard some liberals say to justify his actions or is that he’s giving restaurants time to adjust schedules and orders for the longer hours. Now, I am not an expert in the restaurant industry, but I would imagine it would be best left the restaurant to decide if they can stay open later and how much later On Friday or Saturday with such short notice based on their experience, staff availability and food supplies and how quickly they can make adjustments Or get an extra delivery, etc. I would imagine the employees are chomping at the bit to get extra hours to make up for the reduced capacity and restrictions.
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