St. Louis City and St. Louis County began easing COVID-19 restrictions in a new order effective May 3, KMOV reported.
Mayor Tishaura Jones and County Executive Sam Page announced the new health orders in a joint news conference, the station reported.
Businesses and restaurants can increase capacity from the previous 50% to 100% as long as they still meet social distancing guidelines, the story said. Also, bars and restaurants can now stay open until 3 a.m.
The new order followed criticism by Attorney General Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt who called the St. Louis restrictions “the most stringent in the state that have encroached on personal and economic freedoms.”
He cited the widespread availability of COVID-19 vaccines in calling for an easing of restrictions.
“The restrictions of the pandemic were designed and intended as temporary measures, not as an endless new world of extraordinary government intrusion on the lives of individual Missourians,” he wrote on April 20 to Dr. Faisal Khan, director of the St. Louis County Department of Health.
After the restrictions were eased recently, Schmitt said he will continue to monitor the situation.
“To ensure that personal, economic, and religious freedoms are preserved in St. Louis County, the Attorney General’s Office sent a letter to St. Louis County on April 20 expressing our concerns with the Safer at Home order and its restrictions on St. Louis County residents,” the attorney general said in a statement. “Following my warning about the trampling of individual liberties, St. Louis County Executive Sam Page reversed course and eased many restrictions today.”
During the news conference announcing the easing of restrictions, Page said it was prompted by the fact that vaccinations are widely available and case counts have stabilized, KMOV reported.
“Despite these improving metrics, newly emerging variants of COVID-19 and plateauing of case rates continue to point to the need for caution and mitigation strategies must continue to be employed to control community transmission,” the new order states.