McMaster lets S.C. restaurants return to full capacity

Gov. Henry McMaster on Friday announced he is lifting all occupancy limitations in restaurants throughout South Carolina, effective immediately.

South Carolina’s restaurants have been operating at 50% capacity or less for months amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This most recent executive order allows restaurants to operate at 100% capacity.

Other restaurant safety guidelines — including the required use of face coverings for patrons and staff — remain in place, McMaster said in a news release, for the “time being.” The governor’s “last call order,” which requires the sale and consumption of alcohol in restaurants to stop at 11 p.m., remains in place.

After restaurants were reduced to takeout only in March, McMaster allowed them to offer dine-in services at 50% capacity in early August.

“South Carolina is open for business,” McMaster said. “Our state’s approach has been a measured, deliberate and targeted one — aimed at keeping our economy open and our people safe.”

McMaster also is no longer requiring restaurants space tables 6 feet apart, limit seating to eight people per table, social distance while waiting to be seated or not allow customers to fill or refill their own beverage cups. He did say he strongly recommends these guidelines to continue to be enforced.

The move follows a similar decision by Florida’s governor and on the same day President Donald Trump said he and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for the virus. As of Friday evening, the president was “fatigued,” according to his doctor, and heading to a military hospital for a “few days,” The Associated Press reported.

COVID-19 has killed more than 205,000 Americans this year, including 3,211 in South Carolina and 76 in Sumter.

The state Department of Health and Environmental Control on Friday publicly announced the results of nearly 24,000 COVID-19 tests, a backlog of nine days caused by electronic database glitches that included 1,479 positive test results.

DHEC says there were no delays in notifying people of their results, but the delay since Sept. 24 skews testing data averages, a point experts and officials use to analyze how the virus is spreading.

According to AP and state data, new positive cases were under 250 earlier this week — some of the lowest daily numbers since May “in a state whose infection rate neared the top of the nation this summer and remains above the national average.”

According to AP, state epidemiologist Dr. Linda Bell did not say Friday whether she thought allowing restaurants to reopen to full capacity was a good or bad decision. She said efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19, such as wearing a mask in public, socially distancing and frequent hand washing, remain “just as important as they were months ago.”

“We continue to remind South Carolinians our disease rates are still high,” she said.

On Tuesday, Sumter City Council will decide whether to extend again its ordinance requiring masks be worn in restaurants and retail stores.