93-3-3-WMR Audio on Demand presents the Preston and Steve show podcast.

And now, Preston and Steve's news update with Kathy Romano.

Today is Wednesday, February 16th. Good morning, Kathy.

Good morning in the news this morning. On Wednesday, the city of Philadelphia is expected to announce a revision of its COVID-19 policies as case counts drop.

A COVID-19 vaccine mandate went into effect last month requiring proof of vaccination for indoor dining.

Six ABC reports that future restrictions specifically for indoor dining will be based on a tiered system.

There will be four levels that will determine the guidance.

The all clear, which would obviously mean no masks and essentially back to normal.

Masks only would mean face coverings, but no testing or proof of vaccination will be required.

The next tier is caution where restaurants would require a negative COVID-19 test within 24 hours of seating.

And then extreme caution would mean the city goes back to the vaccine mandate for all dining establishment.

And there will be four criteria for each tier.

Average daily case counts, hospitalizations, positivity rates, and trending direction over the past 10 days.

The most relaxed level is called spitstring, pressed it.

Where you're very comfortable.

Right.

That takes a couple of people, but yeah, yeah, I'm good with that.

CDC data shows as of February 13th, Philadelphia is averaging about 357 new COVID-19 cases per day,

down 88% for when the vaccine mandate went into effect on January 3rd.

Oh, man, light at the end of the tunnel.

Yeah, yeah.

I hope so.

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