Westmoreland and surrounding southwestern Pennsylvania counties received a reprieve — for the weekend, at least — on new restrictions that would have temporarily halted indoor dining and drinking in an attempt to slow increased covid-19 cases.

County officials received word that Gov. Tom Wolf would not announce any new restrictions on Friday or Saturday, Commissioner Gina Cerilli said.

“We were told the governor and department of health are still reviewing the data for southwestern Pennsylvania,” she said. “They told us we would next hear from them Monday.”

Cerilli noted a word of caution hoping the case numbers of people reporting positive for covid-19 do not “suddenly spike again” over the weekend.

“Nothing is ever complete 100%,” she said. “But this is certainly good news our economy will not be impacted for now.”

The state reported 35 additional cases of covid-19 in the county on Friday, bringing the total for the week to 151 and overall total to 952.

Commissioner chairman Sean Kertes said the message from Wolf’s office was “very welcome news” but is hoping the county’s covid-19 test numbers stay in a range where no additional restrictions are necessary.

“I know our office received a number of calls from concerned restaurant owners who were left in limbo with the word we received earlier this week and looking for guidance. This is good news, but again I hope our (covid-19) numbers stay down,” he said.

Debbie Nutter, owner of Leo’s Pub & Grille in Mt. Pleasant, was happy to hear the news of no additional restrictions this weekend.

“That is absolutely really good news. But I still can’t understand why they’re picking on restaurants,” Nutter said. “We’ve been doing so much to keep our customers and workers safe here with sanitizing, social distancing, moving tables and bar stools apart. Yet they want to shut us down, but it’s OK to open the casinos and Kennywood?”

“Why do they keep picking on the restaurants? I can tell you I have already reduced to 40% of capacity to work within the CDC guidelines, but my electric and gas bills are still charging me 100%.”

On Tuesday, county officials confirmed state officials notified them that they were contemplating new restrictions on dining and gatherings in Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Washington and Westmoreland counties as coronavirus cases in the region continue to rise. Those changes were said to be coming as possibly as early as Thursday.

But no further word was received from the state until Friday that no immediate action was planned.

State officials were expected to limit outdoor dining at restaurants to no more than 50 customers and limit gatherings to no more than 25 people. The restrictions were to be reviewed again in two weeks.

It has been just over a month since restaurants, bars and private clubs across the region were permitted to serve food and drink indoors for the first time since mid-March. Establishments, since June 5, have been operating under indoor capacity limits and requirements for mask-wearing and social distancing.

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