PHILADELPHIA - The City of Philadelphia announced Tuesday that restaurants that certify they meet new ventilation standards can operate their indoor dining at up to 50 percent capacity.Currently, restaurants are only allowed to operate up to 25 percent capacity for all indoor dining.
To enhance their ventilation systems, restaurants must ensure they have a fully operation HVAC system that can ventilate the entire indoor dining area.
As such, the HVAC must be able to circulate 20 percent of the air inside with a filtration MERV of 11 or higher. Also, the HVAC system must allow for at least 15 air exchanges per hour, so approximately one every four minutes.