Raimondo says RI will enter 2-week 'pause' starting Nov. 30

PROVIDENCE — Saying she has exhausted less extreme options in the battle against COVID-19, Gov. Gina Raimondo on Thursday announced a slate of new restrictions that will take effect from Nov. 30 through at least Dec. 13. 

“Rhode Island on PAUSE,” as the two-week period is called, includes the closing of bar areas, casinos, gyms and group fitness facilities, classroom learning at colleges and universities, recreational venues such as bowling alleys, and offices “when possible.”

Classroom learning at high schools will be severely curtailed, and new limitations will apply to indoor dining, retail businesses, houses of worship, and social gathering size — what the governor defined at her weekly briefing as the number of people living in one household.

Remaining open during the “pause period” are in-person learning in pre-K through eighth grade, child-care centers, manufacturing and construction, health-care services such as doctors’ offices, and personal services including barbershops and salons.

The governor said a variety of metrics will be used to evaluate the success of the Nov. 30-to-Dec. 13 period, and if they do not reflect a significant reduction in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, the new restrictions will be extended.

“None of this is easy and I wish I didn’t have to do it,” Raimondo said from the Veterans Memorial Auditorium stage.

But without the pause, she said, the state risks overwhelming its hospitals — even, possibly, the Cranston field hospital, which is nearly ready for use, and a second field facility at the Rhode Island Convention Center, which was established but never used during the first coronavirus surge last spring and will be ready for possible use again no later than Dec. 1.

Should what Raimondo described as a health-care "catastrophe” develop, as it has in other states where hospitals are overwhelmed, Rhode Island could be forced to adopt a “crisis standard of care,” she said.

Asked by The Journal to define that term, Health Department Director Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott said it is a complex set of “principles that will help hospitals make decisions ethically.” Asked if that meant some patients could be denied care in such a scenario, Alexander-Scott said “in certain situations, yes.”

Raimondo said that waiting until the last day of November to begin the pause would give people “time to prepare.”

Regarding Thanksgiving, the governor asked Rhode Islanders to “stay at home with the people you live with and celebrate.” Although she urged Rhode Islanders not to travel, she said rapid testing will be offered at T.F. Green Airport on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday after Thanksgiving. Anyone coming from Puerto Rico or any of the 42 states on the state's travel list will either have to quarantine for 14 days or be tested.

As she has repeatedly this fall with the pandemic roaring back here and throughout the United States and the world, Raimondo expressed consternation at state residents who have flouted existing regulations.

The disease is so widespread and contact-tracing so stressed, she said, that it is no longer possible to precisely pinpoint sources of infection or super-spreader events.

With some exceptions, Raimondo added.

“I’ve been begging and pleading with the people of Rhode Island to stop having parties,” Raimondo said. But they have not, she asserted. Birthday parties, sleepovers, baby showers, Halloween parties — parties have been happening in many homes, Raimondo said, and they continue to happen.

Raimondo announced a few measures that will take place immediately:

◘ The state's social gathering limit has been reduced to a single household, whatever number of people live in that household. 

◘ Big-box retailers will be required to develop plans to safely accommodate additional holiday shoppers. 

◘ Raimondo said the state has increased its daily testing capacity for asymptomatic people, and those who do have symptoms. She said the state was expanding its testing capacity at Wickford Junction train station and opening a test site at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket. She said the state plans to open testing sites at South Road Elementary School in South Kingstown and the Stop & Shop grocery store in Greenville. Raimondo said the goal was that, during the two-week pause, the state doubles its rate of testing.

These are among the restrictions during the pause period:

◘ Indoor dining will be reduced to 33% capacity, with one household allowed per table. Outdoor dining and takeout service will remain unaffected.

◘ Houses of worship will be reduced to 25% capacity, or 125 people maximum.

◘ Retailers will be able to remain open under their current restrictions (1 person per 100 square feet, or 1 person per 150 square feet in big-box stores). 

Raimondo said that, with the news that vaccines may soon become available, she believes that the state is in the "seventh inning" of its battle with the virus. "This is the last mile," she said. "We have to get through this year. We have to get to the vaccine." 

Still, she said that next six weeks would probably be the most difficult of all. 

Slipping into vernacular, she said, "It's gonna suck."

The governor also managed a moment of dark humor, acknowledging the plethora of memes — some complimentary, others not — that have appeared showing her face in people's living rooms.

"I kind of wish I could do that," she said, to personally deliver the message of wearing masks and stopping partying.

Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician and associate professor at Brown University who has become a leading national voice during the COVID pandemic, said she was pleased with the new restrictions Thursday — but wished they’d gone further and were implemented sooner.

“Overall, I think the governor is 100% doing the right thing by making the very difficult decisions to close many indoor facilities,” said Ranney, who wasn’t involved in crafting the policies.

Ranney, who over the last few months have been generally supportive of the governor’s leadership, said she understood the political and economic considerations at play. But the state should have had an outright ban on indoor dining, and implemented the restrictions sooner, rather than waiting until Nov. 30, Ranney said. She urged Rhode Islanders to act as if those restrictions were in place today.

“Closing restaurants [for indoor dining] is not a good thing to do for our state,” Ranney said. “Unfortunately, because of our inability to follow other social-distancing guidance, it has become a necessary evil in order to avoid our hospitals and our hospital staff from being overwhelmed.”

Michigan, for instance, has temporarily halted indoor dining, winning plaudits from Ranney and other experts like Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. But Rhode Island’s peers in the region haven’t gone that far.

Ranney added that she agreed with the governor’s assessment of the relatively low risk of K-8 education and the urgent need for classrooms to remain open for those who decide to be there in-person.

With reports from staff writer Brian Amaral

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