San Francisco, Oct 31 San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced the city will temporarily pause reopening of additional businesses and activities scheduled to resume or expand on Tuesday.
The pause is due to an increase in COVID-19 case rates and hospitalizations in San Francisco, coupled with the current increase in cases in California and across the United States.
According to the announcement on Friday, San Francisco will continue its strategy of a thoughtful and deliberate reopening, consistent with emerging scientific data, information and evidence, and will move forward in the safest way possible, Xinhua news agency reported.
The city should take the time to pause now and assess the data than to keep reopening and risk needing to roll-back reopening at a future date, the announcement said.
The majority of activities and businesses that were scheduled to reopen or expand their capacity on Tuesday will be paused. These include opening indoor pools, bowling alleys, and locker rooms at fitness centers, and expanding capacity at indoor dining establishments, places of worship, and museums, among other businesses and activities that are allowed only if a county at least reaches the orange tier under California's blueprint.
"Throughout our response to COVID-19, San Francisco has demonstrated our willingness to make hard choices and take reopening carefully and deliberately," said Breed.
"We have to all keep doing our part and follow public health guidance to keep ourselves, our families, and our entire city safe ... This is going to be especially important with Halloween this weekend and the election on Tuesday. These aren't normal times and we can't act like they are," she added.
( With inputs from IANS )
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