BREAKING: Georgia community shuts down indoor dining, gyms amid coronavirus crisis

A South Georgia county will shutter indoor dining at restaurants, close bars, gyms and others businesses to thwart its growing number of coronavirus cases.

Officials in Albany and Dougherty County are closing bars, gyms and other venues and limiting the number of occupants at other retail spaces for one week as they seek to limit the spread of the deadly and easily transmissible coronavirus, according to the Albany Herald.

The prohibition on bars, gyms and other businesses will go into effect on Friday. The declaration that also prohibits dine-in eating at restaurants will also go in effect Friday.

Grocery stores, convenience stores and other essential businesses will remain open, but those entities are asked to instruct customers to observe a “6-foot rule, a 6-foot distance between themselves, staff and other customers.

“These decisions are not being made lightly,” Dougherty County Commission Chairman Chris Cohilas said. “This is a matter of life and death. It is not because we are anti-church. It is not because we are anti-business.”

The declarations came after Doughterty County announced that two additional residents died from COVID-19. There are four COVID-19 victims that have died in the county in total.