McKee Loosens Restrictions, While CDC Director Urges States Not to Lessen Controls

McKee Loosens Restrictions, While CDC Director Urges States Not to Lessen Controls

Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee announced that he is loosening restrictions for restaurants, gyms, catered events and funeral homes and said more restrictions would be removed in the upcoming weeks.

On Monday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky warned states not to loosen restrictions.

"With these new statistics, I am really worried about reports that more states are rolling back the exact public health measures we have recommended to protect people from COVID-19," Walensky said. "I understand the temptation to do this -- 70,000 cases a day seems good compared to where we were just a few months ago -- but we cannot be resigned to 70,000 cases a day, 2,000 daily deaths." 

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Rhode Island cases have come down in recent weeks, as have hospitalizations, but the number of cases is still extremely high - many countries would lock-down at this level of infection.

Covid ActNow continues to rank Rhode Island as being in an "Active Outbreak."

"Rhode Island is either actively experiencing an outbreak or is at extreme risk. COVID cases are exponentially growing and/or Rhode Island’s COVID preparedness is significantly below international standards," says the site. 

McKee and Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor made the announcement at the weekly press conference.

 

According to the McKee administration:

Related to restaurants – McKee’s team announced that beginning Friday the state is increasing capacity limits from 50 percent to 66 percent. Restrictions related to table spacing and number of households per party are still in effect.

The state is also expanded capacity related to gyms and fitness centers. Beginning Friday the capacity limits change from 1 person to 125 square feet to 1 person to 100 square feet. And, small fitness centers do have the ability to request further flexibility from the Department of Business Regulation.  To request that flexibility businesses are told to visit www.dbr.ri.gov.

Additionally, outdoor fitness activities have no capacity limits as long as 6-foot social distancing is followed and mask-wearing is adhered to. 

Related to funeral homes, McKee’s team announced that they will be doubling capacity at funeral homes to 30 persons indoors and 50 persons outdoors. 

And for catered events – McKee announced some additional incremental moves for this critical industry.  McKee's administration said it has identified a way that dancing can resume safely, beginning in April.