DC mayor exempts Lewis funeral attendees from city’s quarantine restrictions

The order, which remains in effect at least until Oct. 9, goes on to define “high-risk areas” as “locations where the seven (7)-day moving average daily new COVID-19 case rate is ten (10) or more per one hundred thousand (100,000) persons.” By such a metric, the entire state of Georgia is considered “high-risk,” and a recent federal report listed it in the “red zone” because of its skyrocketing cases of the virus. Atlanta’s Fulton County averaged 228 cases per 100,000 people in the past seven days, according to most recent statistics from The New York Times.

Regarding why attendees at Lewis’ funeral escaped the strictures of self-quarantine, Bowser Press Secretary Susana Castillo characterized the ceremony as an essential government activity, telling Just the News on Friday, “Government activity is essential, and the Capitol of the United States is exempt from the Mayor’s Order.”

The mayor’s office still deems the funerals of regular people non-essential activity, however. When asked whether attendees of non-government funerals in high-risk areas are still required to self-quarantine under the mayor’s order, Castillo responded simply, “Yes.”