MoCo Reimposing COVID Capacity Limits On Restaurants, Businesses

ROCKVILLE, MD — An amended executive order that will reduce capacity limits for businesses — including restaurants and retail establishments — has been approved by the Montgomery County Council.

All nine councilmembers on Tuesday voted in favor of the order, which will go into effect at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 10.

It limits public gatherings to 25 people or less, caps dining inside restaurants at 25 percent, and requires food service establishments to keep a daily record of all dining patrons for contact tracing purposes.

Museums, art galleries, bowling alleys, and retail shops are also required to reduce their capacity to 25 percent or 25 people, whichever is lower.

"We have been watching the daily number of new cases go up for more than two weeks and it's unfortunately time to roll back some of our reopening steps in order to decrease the spike we are seeing," said County Executive Marc Elrich. "Like you, I am experiencing 'COVID fatigue' and want things to go back to normal, but we have to stay at this in order to protect the health of our community."

The county, which is currently in phase two of its pandemic recovery plan, has typically reopened at a slower rate than the rest of the state due to higher COVID-19 numbers. Health officials say the county will not enter phase three until they see low and medium transmission levels — or 10 to 35 cases a day.

Montgomery County on Tuesday hit 20 straight days with more than 100 daily new COVID-19 cases, according to the Maryland Department of Health.

The latest addition — of 185 infections — brings the county to 27,731 positive cases since the pandemic began in early March.

Cases are also rising elsewhere in Maryland. Gov. Larry Hogan (R) is expected to provide an update on the state's coronavirus response at 5 p.m.