Restaurants to open for indoor dining Monday

234 new confirmed cases across state

2 new cases in Laurens County

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster announced Friday that restaurants across the state will be allowed to reopen for dine-in customers beginning Monday.

Restaurants were granted the ability to offer outdoor dining this past Monday. The indoor dining will include restrictions such as eight feet between tables and no more than half of indoor space utilized for customers at once, no groups larger than eight people and increased cleaning. Restaurants were initially limited to take-out and drive-thru service as the state wrestled with COVID-19.

“Since this virus has appeared, we now know some things that have changed,” McMaster said. “We now know the dimensions of the virus. We know how it’s spread. We didn’t know exactly how that worked before. We know that. We know it’s persistence. We know much more about it now than we did back in early March when it first appeared in South Carolina.”

Accelerate SC, a task force appointed by McMaster, has been guiding state officials on what they believe to be the best path forward during the COVID-19 pandemic.

State health authorities also confirmed an additional 238 coronavirus cases Friday, bringing the state’s total confirmed cases up to 7,367. The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control also reported four more deaths due to the coronavirus, all of whom were elderly.

The number of confirmed cases in Laurens County grew by four to 46, according to DHEC’s report Friday.

Officials said they believe the number of cases in the state is flattening after more than two months, but the increased number following two days of fewer than 100 newly confirmed cases is due to increased testing around the state.