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On Sunday, Gov. Tom Wolf ordered all restaurants and bars in five Pennsylvania counties to close their dine-in facilities for two weeks starting Monday, March 16, in an effort to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. The counties are Montgomery, Delaware, Bucks, Chester, and Allegheny. Philadelphia is not included, yet.
Restaurants and bars can still offer delivery and takeout. Drive-through service can also continue.
The administration says it will reevaluate the situation at the end of the 14-day period and decide from there whether to keep this order in place or do something different.
Many restaurants in those counties have quickly added or expanded delivery and takeout service over the last few days. In Philadelphia, restaurants are doing the same. Others have decided to close temporarily even without an official order.
Also on Sunday, the CDC recommended gatherings of 50 people or more be canceled or postponed for the next eight weeks. That comes after the city of Philadelphia banned gatherings of 1,000 or more people last week and also recommended that events with 250 or more are not held, which led to several upcoming food festivals and tasting events being cancelled or postponed.
