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Starting at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, January 23, COVID restrictions will be relaxed. Bars and restaurants will be reduced from 25% to 50% of their capacity and museums and theaters will be allowed to reopen.
The Safer Home Restrictions issued on December 26 by the Shelby County Health Department, under which citizens were required to limit activities outside their homes to work and essential activities, will be lifted.
Businesses that closed as part of the Safer at Home order included the Memphis Zoo and the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.
The zoo announced it would reopen on Saturday.
Under Health Directive No 17, no business is specifically closed, but all must meet security restrictions, including masking, social distancing and capacity requirements.
Because businesses will be open, the directive relies on the increased responsibility of each person, including not attending large gatherings and limiting gatherings in their homes.
Under the directive, schools are strongly encouraged to suspend contact sports.
While bars and restaurants will be able to increase capacity, six feet of separation is still required between tables. Customers should be limited to six people per table. Establishments must still stop serving at 10 p.m.
Smoking is still prohibited in indoor halls, but under the new rules establishments will be allowed to dance outdoors, provided the dancers are six feet apart and belonging to the same household.
The stricter rules were put in place on Boxing Day, when the weekly positivity rate was well over 12%. In the wave that followed, daily cases hit nearly 1,000 three times between late December and January 10, a pandemic record so far in Shelby County.
Last week, the numbers started to stabilize and go down.
Restaurants welcomed the news of more indoor capacity to accommodate customers, but some restaurants that closed under the 25% capacity restriction were unsure how long it would take to reopen.
On Wednesday, January 20, the Department of Health announced 237 new cases and no new deaths, a level not seen in Shelby County since mid-October. These improvements, along with the pace at which vaccines are administered, have prompted the Department of Health to ease restrictions.
On Thursday, January 21, the department announced that it would announce where it would give the second doses to people who received their first vaccine in the last week of December or in early January.
Hundreds of members of the public were vaccinated the week of December 27 without an appointment on days the Department of Health had designated for first responders. He later closed the line and started requiring badge numbers for first responders or proof of age for those 75 and over.
On January 8, he posted the sign-up link for the first dose appointments that would start the following week. In less than 24 hours, appointments were made until the end of January, leaving little recourse for people wanting to know about their second photos but wait.
Many of those waiting are old people.
“The lack of information has caused a lot of anguish in a segment of the population that already has to worry about,” said Karen McCarthy, a Shelby County resident, who added that “aging is hard enough. “.
This week, the Department of Health announced that it plans to administer second doses, starting in late January, to about 9,500 people. He also said the delay in time and place was due to the fact that the negotiations of the site contracts were still being worked out.
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