Safer at Home order issued
4-week directive begins Saturday
Memphis and Shelby County will return to a version of a Safer at Home order effective Saturday. The order will be in effect until Jan. 22.
“At this point, we don’t anticipate reversing the curve, the goal is to blunt the curve and reduce deaths,” Shelby County Health Director Alisa Haushalter said to the Shelby County Commission Monday as she outlined the directive.
“That’s not a ‘stay at home’ order, it’s a ‘safer at home’ order... We are not closing indoor dining,” Haushalter said. “We are clearly saying to the public you are safer at home and should not be out and about.”
The new Safer at Home order enacts tougher restrictions but stops short of the harshest measured issued by officials during the early days of the pandemic.
According to the latest directive: h Restaurants must limit indoor seating at 25% capacity. Otherwise, residents are strongly encouraged to shelter at home “as much as possible.”
h All food and beverage service shall close at 10 pm. This means that any guests who are already receiving service at 10 p.m. may remain there until 10:30 p.m. to complete payment arrangements but may not be served food or beverages after 10 p.m.
h Grocery stores, retail stores, and “food cultivation businesses” that are open to the public must operate at 50% capacity.
h Gyms, fitness centers, and exercise facilities may operate but capacity must not exceed 50% (including staff )
h Daycare and childcare facilities can remain open, with priority given to children of parents working in essential businesses.
Haushalter said the directive is four weeks in length because the department believes it needs to be in place for two COVID-19 incubation periods for it to be effective. The directive comes as Memphis-area COVID-19 hospitalizations have topped 550 in recent days and the percentage of beds available has been in single-digits.
The directive changed considerably from a draft version that leaked to the media on Friday evening. That draft would’ve closed restaurant dining and
retailers that didn’t sell food. It would’ve taken effect on Dec. 21 and lasted two weeks.
Politicians, particularly those who represent suburban parts of Shelby County, had pushed back on the draft of the directive and had noted that the health department’s own contact tracing data showed more spread in other facets of the economy.
Haushalter apologized to the Shelby County Commission for the document leaking to the public and the media.
She said she did not know who leaked the information but admonished them for doing so, saying that the health department had received threats and its duties had been negatively impacted.
“Whoever chose to leak that information, much of our time was actually pulled away from what we need to do in public health....,” Haushalter said. “After the document was leaked this weekend, we received substantive threats.”
She also said the order attempted to balance controlling the virus with mitigating the impact on businesses.
“If we’re going to recover economically, we have to stop the spread of the virus locally,” she said.
Restrictions on indoor dining mostly roll over from previous directive
Though “on-site dining services are strongly discouraged” in the latest health directive, several restrictions have been outlined for patrons who choose to risk possible exposure to COVID-19.
The strictest of those measures, capping indoors dining at 25% of a restaurant or bar’s capacity, is the most significant of the new restrictions.
Other guidance points include:
• No more than 6 people from the same household can sit at a table.
• Masks must be worn at all times unless a patron is physically chewing food or taking a sip of a beverage
• No dancing is allowed h Patrons must be seated when eating and drinking, and cannot congregate around a bar area
• Patrons cannot order from bar areas h Food service must be limited to 90 minutes or less
• Only staff needed to close, open, clean, or operate curb-side and delivery services are allowed in restaurants between the hours of 10:30 pm and 5:00 am.
• Curbside service, delivery, and drive-through sales of alcoholic beverages can continue, but sales must end by 10 p.m.
Samuel Hardiman covers Memphis city government and politics for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached by email at samuel.hardiman@commercialappeal.com or followed on Twitter at @samhardiman.
Micaela Watts covers breaking news for The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at micaela.watts@commercialappeal.com.