Gov. Northam imposes new rules to curb COVID spread
As the number of COVID-19 cases rises across Virginia – along with the rest of the country – Gov. Ralph Northam has announced new measures aimed at stopping the spread of the virus
The following rules take effect at midnight on Sunday, Nov. 15:
- Public and private gatherings – indoors and outdoors – must be limited to 25 individuals, down from the current cap of 250.
- All Virginians aged 5 and over are required to wear face coverings in indoor public spaces.
This expands the current mask mandate, which requires all individuals age 10 and over to wear face coverings in indoor public settings.
- Strengthened enforcement will be implemented for retail businesses. All essential retail businesses, including grocery stores and pharmacies, must adhere to statewide guidelines for physical distancing, face coverings, and enhanced cleaning.
While certain essential retail businesses have been required to adhere to these regulations as a best practice, violations will now be enforceable through the Virginia Department of Health as a Class 1 misdemeanor.
- A strengthened curfew will be implemented for on-site alcohol.
The on-site sale, consumption, and possession of alcohol is prohibited after 10 p.m. in any restaurant, dining establishment, food court, brewery, microbrewery, distillery, winery, and tasting room, and all these establishments must close by midnight.
Virginia law does not distinguish between restaurants and bars, however. Under current restrictions, individuals that choose to consume alcohol before 10 p.m. must be served, as in a restaurant, and must remain seated at tables six feet apart.
Related story: COVID cases trending upwards in Fairfax County
Virginia is averaging 1,500 newly reported COVID-19 cases per day, up from a statewide peak of approximately 1,200 in May.
While Southwest Virginia has experienced a spike in the number of diagnosed COVID-19 cases, all five of the commonwealth’s health regions are reporting a positivity rate of over 5 percent. Hospitalizations have increased statewide by more than 35 percent in the last four weeks.
“COVID-19 is surging across the country, and while cases are not rising in Virginia as rapidly as in some other states, I do not intend to wait until they are. We are acting now to prevent this health crisis from getting worse,” Northam said.
“Everyone is tired of this pandemic and restrictions on our lives,” he said. “But as we saw earlier this year, these mitigation measures work. I am confident that we can come together as one Commonwealth to get this virus under control and save lives.”
9 responses to “Gov. Northam imposes new rules to curb COVID spread”
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Covid is getting worse… prior measures weren't good enough, so this is probably for the best
This order is like a scene from Spinal Tap. Where do the numbers come from? Why not 26 people? Why not 24? What happens when a child turns 5? Covid magically appears? Query what these numbers would be if we used the metric system. Raw numbers of cases are meaningless without context. We are testing at much higher levels than in May. All arbitrary and not based on science. The virus is real and should be taken seriously but this one size fits all with exceptions galore is meaningless.
What numbers do you suggest? Don't claim ignorance on this–research the statistics online and get back to me. Show your math, and tell me what exceptions should be made and why. Tell me what age you think children should start wearing masks, and let me know what kind of expertise you may have regarding any of this, please.
–kda
This is the burden of the governor to prove, connect to evidence or base on data. And he has not provided anything to substantiate his executive fiat. I would note that whether or not you have restrictions on crowds or require masks, the virus spreads. But for purposes of discussion, I offer the following. With increasing lockdowns and in-home mask mandates, if you compare Texas, California, Florida and Georgia with very different policies on schools in person or remote, masks or no masks and businesses open or closed, you see same ebbs and flows of cases. (Tried to post in here but woudn't work – go to covid tracking project and select the states and covid cases per million with the four states I mentioned overlayed and you can see the graph). Politicians cannot control nature.
We are sheep like, and Northam is our shepherd.
Thank you Northam for telling us what to do,
when can we consume alcohol
and most importantly –
Thank you for ruining our businesses, taking away our livelihood and preventing us of making a living.
Proud to be an American these days.
No one is infringing your basic human rights here, stop being so melodramatic. People are dying, lots of them. If it means the travesty of you not being able to have a drink at a bar, perhaps you need better perspective of your fellow Americans.
Such a narrow minded approach its just saddens me.
Isn't the bar give people work?
Does the bar has an owner?
Are people make a living off of it? feeding their families?
Pay taxes so the wealthy neighborhoods in the area will have nice sidewalks and well paved roads?
and that is one single example.
read around this blog sir, tell me how many places are closing because they ran out of money?
you talk about people dying, well, you only care about people dying of one reason – covid, but you care very little about all the rest.
The degree by which you infer a whole lot about me from so little is only surpassed by the irony in your entire statement.
Respectfully, basic respect for some rights is dying. Without diminishing the severity of the virus threat to public health, and leaving aside whether lockdown rules are good public policy, the pandemic has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty which have happened by executive fiat, rather than legislation. The result was a rule that allowed some business to operate while severely restricting the right to attend a house of worship. We’re supposed to think that these kinds of arbitrary and illogical rules are kosher. Treating the right to render worship to God as being as important as the right to engage in garden variety business activity should not be hard to differentiate. If you look in the Constitution, you will see the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, which protects religious liberty, but you will not find a business exception clause. Don't have the room here but education is a basic right that is being denied, too.