Wolf to relax yellow phase restrictions

By KRISTIE LINDEN
klinden@yourmvi.com
Next week, when all of Pennsylvania is released from the stay-at-home order, restaurants in yellow-phase counties can offer outdoor dining as an option for customers.
Beginning June 5, restaurants and retail food businesses that have outdoor seating areas can offer dine-in service as long as certain conditions are met.
Indoor areas, including the bars, of restaurants must be closed to customers except for through-traffic. Seating in outdoor areas must be at tables, not lined up at a bar or a food-service area.
There won’t be any self-service options permitted like salad bars or buffets, condiments won’t be sitting on the tables, menus must be single-use and servers won’t refill food or beverage containers.
Once in the green phase, restaurants, bars and retail food businesses will be able to provide indoor dine-in service as well, but there will still be requirements to follow.
In the green phase, bar seating can be used if customers are seated and comply with physical distancing guidelines, keeping 6 feet between patrons or using physical barriers. Standing in bar areas won’t be permitted. Four customers with existing relationships can sit together at a bar but have to social distance from the other customers at the bar.
Customers will be required to wear masks while entering, exiting or traveling throughout the restaurant but they can remove the masks while they’re seated. Tables must be 6 feet apart.
The maximum occupancy is either 50% of the fire capacity or 12 people per 1,000 square feet. The Department of Health also recommends arranging the seating so all customers sitting at tables are 6 feet apart and calculating how many customers can be accommodated.
Also in the green phase, personal care services such as hair salons and barber shops will be required to operate by appointment only.
Visitation to prisons and hospitals can resume subject to the discretion of the facilities, but nursing home visitation restrictions will initially remain in place.
Gatherings of 250 or more people will still be prohibited in the green phase, but that requirement doesn’t apply to houses of worship.
Gov. Tom Wolf also announced Wednesday that professional sports teams can resume competition, but without spectators.
Teams will be allowed to practice or play in counties where Wolf’s yellow or green designation applies.
To resume, a team or a league must develop a coronavirus safety plan that has been approved by the DOH and it must include testing or screening and monitoring of all “on-venue” players and personnel, the administration said.
Fans or spectators cannot be permitted inside or outside the sporting venue property, the administration said.
Wolf will allow overnight camps and organized youth sports to begin or resume in areas where the green phase is in effect, and asks that federal guidance be followed to prevent transmission of the virus. Those guidelines do not explicitly bar spectators.
Cases
There have now been 69,417 cases of coronavirus in the state, including 780 new cases since Tuesday.
There were 113 new deaths reported, for a total of 5,265 fatalities due to the virus.
Allegheny County now has 1,828 cases, an increase of 12 patients. According to the DOH, there were no new deaths reported and that total remains 160. According to the Allegheny County Health Department, there was one new death and the total it is tracking is 151.
In Fayette County, there were no new cases, so that total remains at 95 and no new deaths, that total remains at four.
Washington County reported no new cases and no new deaths. Those totals remain at 138 and five respectively.
Westmoreland County reported no new cases, and that total remains 442. According to the DOH, there were no new deaths and that total is 38. Westmoreland County Coroner Ken Bacha also reports no new deaths, and his total remains at 32.