MADISON (WKOW) – Public Health Madison and Dane County announced Emergency Order # 14 on Tuesday for COIVD-19 guidelines.
Emergency Order # 14 eases some of the restrictions put in place to limit the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. It increases collection limits, updates school protection measures policy requirements, allows restaurants to open up to 50% of capacity and allows tavernas to open up to 25% of capacity, with certain safety requirements.
The order will take effect at 12:01 pm on March 10.
The differences between the current order No. 13 and the new order No. 14 are:
- Internal meetings where food or drink is offered or provided are limited to 150 people. An internal meeting where food or drink is not offered or provided is limited to 350 people. Individuals must maintain a physical distance of 1.8 m and facial coverage is mandatory.
- External meetings are limited to 500 people. Individuals must maintain a physical distance of 1.8 m. Facial coverings required in meetings of more than 50 people.
- The school protection measures policy requirements have been updated and include items on coverage and facial distance for employees, distance for students and groupings of students.
- Restaurants can open up to 50% of their capacity.
- Taverns must limit the indoor dining capacity to 25% of the approved seating capacity levels. Space for tables and chairs to ensure at least six (6) feet of physical distance between customers who are not members of the same residence or living unit.
The guidelines that will remain the same between order no. 13 and order no. 14 are:
- Facial coverage is required in closed buildings, when driving with people who are not part of your home, and outdoors in a restaurant or tavern. The types of facial coverage allowed have been updated to reflect the new CDC recommendations.
- Companies continue to be limited to 50% of approved construction capacity and must have cleaning and hygiene policies in place.
- Provisions for continuing education and higher education institutions, sector-specific requirements, health care, public health, human services, infrastructure, manufacturing, government and religious entities and groups remain unchanged.
Along with the announcement, Public Health launched an updated tool to assess the progress of Dane County during the pandemic, called Forward Dane: Updating metrics in light of vaccination progress. That includes a new set of measures that emphasize the spread and epidemiology of the vaccine.
This is a developing story.