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COVID In Pennsylvania: New Restrictions Take Effect To Help State Combat Surging Cases

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Businesses in Pennsylvania are going through another shutdown, to help the state combat COVID-19. The sweeping changes, which started at midnight, include a ban on indoor dining, the closure of gyms and entertainment venues.

Also, school sports are on hold, and there are tighter limits on the number of people in retail businesses, and gatherings both indoors and outdoors.

As you might imagine Gov. Tom Wolf is being criticized for these restrictions. The National Federation of Independent Business said this will be a death knell for small businesses in the state and more people will lose their jobs.

Eyewitness News was in the Philadelphia suburbs where restaurant owners say these new restrictions will undoubtedly hurt their bottom line.

While Philadelphia has been under tighter restrictions for a few weeks now, the suburbs were operating with fewer limitations.

Statewide for the next three weeks, only takeout food or outdoor dining is allowed. Customers will not be allowed to eat inside of restaurants or workout inside of gyms.

But it is not a full shutdown like back in March.

Retail stores will still be allowed to operate, but with capacity limits.

We spoke with an employee of a restaurant who says the real struggling will be to feed her family.

"It is hard to kind of try to feed your family, with like supplemental income doing this now, whereas before it was like we're going to go to work OK we have grocery money, blah blah blah, so has been difficult but I mean it is a great place to work, so I truly don't mind it, even with the ups and downs. Because they all are really fantastic here," said Megan Lamplugh said.

These restrictions are in place until at least Monday, Jan 4.

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