Author: Sam Buisman

Dane County continues to walk back its re-opening as COVID-19 rips through the county.

Public Health Madison and Dane County issued a Wednesday-morning order that will further restrict the allowances of Phase 2, the current stage of the county's Forward Dane re-opening plan, after pubic health officials confirmed hundreds of new COVID-19 cases over the weekend. This order restricts restaurants to 25% of their seating capacity and forbids bars from offering indoor dining while also limiting outdoor gatherings to 25 people.

Discussing this order in a press release, Dane County Executive Joe Parisi urged Madisionians to follow these guidelines to avoid another brutal uptick in cases.

“Too many people have ignored public health guidelines regarding social distancing,” wrote Parisi. “This, in turn, has resulted in the rapid spread of the virus throughout the county. We need everyone to take this seriously and adhere to the guidelines and recommendations that are proven to reduce the spread of COVID-19 or we will face the very real possibility of having to resort to even stricter guidelines.”

This is the second restriction by Public Health Madison and Dane County of its re-opening permissions this week after a Thursday order restricted private gatherings to ten people or less and limited restaurant customers to only sitting with members of their household.

These new restrictions will go into effect at 8:00 A.M. on Thursday morning.

According to Public Health Madison and Dane County, there have been 1,952 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Dane County and 32 deaths from the disease.