Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Friday that New York restaurants, which have been unable to serve indoor customers since mid-December, should be able to reopen their doors on Valentine’s Day on February 14, thanks to the pandemic’s subsidence.

Cuomo said New York has seen signs of a downturn in the epidemic since early January, when the epidemic hit a new peak, fueled by the holiday season.

According to the governor’s figures, the test-positive rate in New York has now decreased to 4.9% from 7.1% in early January.

“You can reserve a table now, plan your dinner, and marry someone off on Valentine’s Day,” he joked.

But while detected cases of coronavirus variants, especially the British and more recently South Africa, are increasing in the United States, he has warned that this reopening, with a capacity limited to 25%, remains conditional on “maintaining current positive rates.”

New York dining rooms were closed for the first time in the spring, before reopening at the end of September and then closing in mid-December, much to the dismay of the bloodless restaurant sector, like all sectors related to tourism.

Restaurants that remained open often set up huts or tents on the sidewalk, but success was not. But as temperatures drop – it was 6 degrees Celsius on Friday afternoon – customers are scarce.