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COVID In Philadelphia: Limited Indoor Dining On Track To Resume In City On Jan. 16, Mayor Kenney Says

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Indoor dining is on track to resume in Philadelphia next weekend. Mayor Jim Kenney said Friday the city still plans to allow "limited indoor dining" to resume on Saturday, Jan. 16.

"Assuming we don't have a spike in COVID-19 cases between now and Jan. 15, we plan to allow limited indoor dining to resume on Jan. 16," Kenney wrote in a tweet. "We will provide details at next Tuesday's COVID press conference, and guidance will be added to our website at that time."

Kenney said more information will be released during the city's COVID-19 press conference on Tuesday, and the city's guidance will also be posted on their website.

While Pennsylvania lifted COVID-19 restrictions on indoor dining on Monday, Philadelphia's restrictions remain in effect until Jan. 15.

Dr. Thomas Farley, the city's health commissioner, said Tuesday he couldn't "say for sure" if the restrictions would be lifted on time because the city was still concerned about a post-holiday COVID spike.

"I am concerned that we are seeing increases related to Christmas. We've seen sort of an uptick in the City of Philadelphia. More rapid rises in the suburbs around us," Farley said. "And big increases across New England, New York, across the country as a whole. So, we're very worried [about] where this is going to go. We have to watch this over the next few days to determine if they can open on the 16th of January. We started seeing it about five, six days afterward, but then it takes a couple of days for the data to get in and it lasted a good 10 days to two weeks after."

The city reported 629 new COVID-19 cases and 29 new deaths attributed to the coronavirus on Friday. The citywide case total now stands at 96,088 and the death toll is at 2,596, according to city statistics.

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