California To Resume Indoor Dining Alongside New Jersey In Slow Crawl Back From COVID-19

As many governments move to slowly crawl back from the COVID-19 pandemic, California and New Jersey have taken a major step towards pre-pandemic normalcy. On Monday, both states confirmed that restaurants would soon be allowed to resume indoor dining with limited seating, after months of holding back while other states lifted the restriction.

California will begin rolling backs restrictions in a limited manner Monday, when restaurants in San Diego and San Francisco will be allowed to resume indoor dining. At the same time, certain other restrictions will be lifted in nine other counties, including movie theaters, gyms, and houses of worship. Only hair salons will be allowed to open with restricted policies in all counties.

Full restrictions will remain intact for 80% of California’s residents. Notably, this includes Los Angeles County, the biggest by population in the entire state.

Despite moving forward with reopening certain businesses, California still had more coronavirus cases — roughly 200,000 — in August than any other state. That number is, however, still down from 262,000 in July.

According to New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, restaurants will be able to resume indoor dining Friday with 25% capacity to better allow for social distancing. This ruling also will also allow movie theaters to resume operation, which had become something of a sore subject in New Jersey when the state was sued by major theater chains in July.

“Masks are required to be worn at all times in the theater unless you’re pulling it down to put away a handful of popcorn,” Murphy explained at a press conference.