#NYC eateries can serve indoors at 35 percent capacity next week

New York City restaurants can boost their indoor dining capacity to 35 percent next Friday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced.

The COVID-19 positivity and hospitalization rates across the Empire State have been tracking downward in recent weeks, “so now is the time to start doing more reopening,” Cuomo said Friday during a virtual Albany press briefing as he made the eatery announcement.

“In one week we’ll go to 35 percent [capacity] in New York City restaurants, which is consistent with New Jersey,” said Cuomo, explaining that city residents have been opting to dine out in New Jersey, where indoor dining capacity was bumped up to 35 percent earlier this month.

Indoor dining at Big Apple restaurants reopened last Friday at 25 percent capacity after the governor yet again shuttered indoor business at the city’s eateries — which have been financially ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic — in mid-December.

The rest of New York state has been permitted to serve indoors at 50 percent capacity.

“We’re responding to the data. Obviously, we’re more sensitive to New York City because of the density, the concentration, the history,” Cuomo said. “But we’re headed in the right direction. We’re making progress.”

The statewide coronavirus positivity rate was at 3.49 percent as of Thursday, according to the latest state data.