- The Washington Times - Monday, December 7, 2020

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on Monday announced a one-time $1,200 stimulus payment for an estimated 20,000 eligible residents who are unemployed.

The city will use money from the federal government’s Coronavirus, Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act to fund the one-time payments, the mayor said.

Any resident who filed and was deemed qualified for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) as of Nov. 30 is eligible for the payments, which will be issued on a rolling basis throughout December.

PUA is one of six programs being implemented nationwide that were authorized through the CARES Act, and it is set to end this year.

The PUA program covers people who are self-employed, independent contractors, gig economy workers, seeking part-time employment or lacking sufficient work history, and those who exhausted their eligibility for both traditional unemployment insurance and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation.

During the briefing, Miss Bowser also prohibited high-contact sports in the city amid a surge in coronavirus cases.

The new rule applies to basketball, boxing, football, hockey, lacrosse, martial arts, rugby, soccer and wrestling. Professional and university athletics are exempt.

Residents can exercise individually or engage in “casual, non-league, non-high-contact games and activities” on fields regulated by the Department of Parks and Recreation, so long as social distancing can be maintained.

Moreover, high school extracurricular sports and competitions are suspended for all schools citywide including public, charter, private and parochial schools.

Sports clubs and recreation centers also are required to halt all physical sports and organized athletic activities for high schoolers.

The new restrictions are “due to unsupervised interactions that are happening before and after activities with older students,” the mayor said.

Children who are middle school-aged or younger can still participate in organized drills and clinics for high-contact sports but with new rules: Athletes must be in a group that does not exceed 12 people, and the activities must not “involve actual physical contact with one another.”

Physical education classes for all grades must not allow students to be within 6 feet of each other.

The D.C. announcements came the same day Maryland was allowing high school sports practices to begin again. However, the state’s largest school district, Montgomery County, is pausing practices amid a hike in cases.

Miss Bowser also announced that the D.C. Health Department is now reporting information about virus outbreaks. An outbreak is defined as “two or more cases reported at a location within a 14-day period,” she said.

Data posted Monday show 109 total outbreaks in the District between Aug. 1 and Nov. 26 at 12 locations including schools, businesses, houses of worship and shared housing buildings.

The top three places with the most outbreaks include colleges and universities (30), K-12 grade school buildings (19), child care (15) and restaurants and bars (15).

Health officials also reported 183 new COVID-19 cases in the District, bringing the total to 23,319, of which 16,733 have been cleared from isolation. Additionally, four more deaths raises the toll to 701.

On Saturday, the District reported 392 daily new cases, which is the highest number since the pandemic began. D.C. has more than 705,000 residents, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The seven-day average daily case rate per 100,000 people is 34.3, and the mean turnaround time for tests is 3.3 days, both of which have been in the “red” zone of reopening phases for more than two weeks.

Last week, Miss Bowser announced that she sent a request for more coronavirus vaccine doses to the federal government’s Operation Warp Speed.

The mayor said the first expected shipment would only cover a small fraction of the city’s more than 80,000 health care workers.

• Emily Zantow can be reached at ezantow@washingtontimes.com.

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