On Tuesday, Mayor Mitch Roth signed the Mayor’s COVID-19 Emergency Rule No. 19 easing COVID-19 restrictions throughout Hawaiʻi County.

The new emergency rules follows Governor Ige’s lastest Emergency Proclamation Related to COVID-19, signed on Monday, November 29, which suspends laws allowing the counties to instate and enforce their own emergency rules without his concurrence. This is the first time the counties have been granted the ability to do so since the Roth Administration took office last December.

The relaxed restrictions include, but aren’t limited to, an increase in gathering sizes to 25 individuals for indoor and 100 individuals for outdoor activities, expanded capacity of restaurants, bars, and barbershops, and an increase in capacity of indoor and outdoor recreational areas, pending approved COVID-19 mitigation measures for all events or activities with the potential to generate gatherings over the permitted maximum number of persons allowed.

Facemasks will continue to be mandated in indoor gathering settings and are strongly encouraged outdoors in large groups. Special event requests will still be required for gatherings larger than the allowed limits, indoors and out.