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Indoor Dining In NYC Will Resume On Friday, Earlier Than Expected
By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 8, 2021
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Scott Lynch/Gothamist
By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 8, 2021
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After being shut down in December due to a surge in COVID-19 cases, indoor dining will resume in NYC on Friday, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Monday. Cuomo had earlier announced that restaurants could reopen for indoor dining on Valentine's Day -- today he moved up the reopening day, pointing to data indicating that the surge in COVID-19 infections that followed the recent holidays has declined.
"The post-holiday surge is over," Cuomo told reporters. "We see it in the positivity, we see it in the hospitalizations... The numbers are down now."
Governor Andrew Cuomo's state COVID-19 data showing a decline in the spread of the virus.
Courtesy Governor Andrew Cuomo's office.
Cuomo said restaurateurs had asked to be able to open a couple of days before Valentine's Day to prepare the staff and supplies. Restaurants will be able to serve customers inside at 25% capacity starting Friday.
The governor reserved the right to suspend indoor dining again in response to the data, as he has done in the past. But Cuomo stressed that the key to beating back the virus rested on vaccinations.
"We are in a footrace with the COVID spread," Cuomo said. "We are watching for variants, we are watching for increased infection from variants, we are watching vaccine infection with some of these new variants. But the footrace is clear -- rate of vaccination vs. rate of infection."
As of Monday morning, nearly 2.5 million New Yorkers had received their first shot of vaccine statewide, and Cuomo said 90% of the vaccine doses supplied to New York had been administered.
Cuomo reversed course last week and agreed to let restaurant workers get vaccinated at the discretion of local governments. Mayor Bill de Blasio had been pushing for the idea and welcomed the change. Under state guidelines, restaurant workers could start making appointments on Monday.
Andrew Rigie, executive director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance, said the earlier reopening date would help restaurants bounce back.
"This will allow restaurants to generate much needed revenue from the Valentine’s Day weekend business, much of which they would have lost because the holiday falls on a Sunday this year," Rigie said in a statement. "The advanced opening and better health metrics are welcome news to the city’s decimated restaurant industry and to lovers alike.”
Tagged
COVID-19
indoor dining
restaurants
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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