New York City Restaurants to Increase Indoor Dining Capacity to 50%

    On March 19, New York City restaurants can increase their indoor dining capacities to 50%, announced Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose days of issuing executive orders are numbered after New York legislators voted on Friday to significantly scale back the governor’s pandemic-linked emergency powers and return matters like shutdowns and the vaccination process to local control.

    Also on March 19, New York restaurants outside of the city were already set to expand their indoor dining capacities from 50% to 75%.

   “We will continue to follow the science and react accordingly,” Gov. Cuomo said in a joint statement with New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. “If we keep the infections down and vaccinations up, we will continue to stay ahead in the footrace against this invisible enemy and reach the light at the end of the tunnel together.”

   The indoor dining capacity increases are part of both states’ efforts “to jump start their post-COVID recoveries and reinvigorate the economy,” a press release said.

   In addition, since indoor dining in New York City reopened on Feb. 12, “two COVID-19 incubation periods have passed without any significant rise in infection and hospitalization rates,” the release noted.

   For the past two days, Dave A. Chokshi, MD, New York City’s health commissioner has been saying that although the city’s rates of hospitalization and COVID deaths have plateaued, they have not yet “plunged.”

   New Jersey last expanded indoor dining capacity on Feb. 5 and since that time, “the number of hospitalizations in the state has dropped by over 1,000 and has remained consistent,” also plateauing.