White House recommends tighter restrictions on Louisiana businesses

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - In a memo given to Governor John Bel Edwards last week, the White House’s Coronavirus Task Force recommends tighter restrictions on some Louisiana businesses in order to flatten the spiking curve.

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Edwards issued a mask mandate, closed bars, and limited gatherings to 50 people beginning July 13. During Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to Baton Rouge the following day, the task force recommended closing gyms and limiting gatherings to 10 people.

“We will certainly take a look at these other things and see whether these are additional steps that we have to take,” Edwards said during his July 16 press conference. “As I stand here right now, I’m not of a mindset that we’re about to impose new restrictions.”

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The current set of rules and regulations for businesses during the pandemic expires on July 26. Edwards will replace those rules with new policies, though it’s not clear whether restrictions will tighten, loosen, or stay the same.

“Everything that we’ve done, thus far, has been consistent with guidelines that we’ve gotten from the CDC and the White House,” Edwards said.

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The task force also recommended encouraging more outdoor dining by slashing restaurants’ indoor seating capacity by another 25 percent.

Read the full set of recommendations from the White House here, following Edwards’ letter to Attorney General Jeff Landry defending the mask mandate.

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