Montgomery County may get new pandemic restrictions as cases trend up in the region.

County Executive Marc Elrich announced Wednesday that he’s proposing gatherings will be limited to 25 people, down from 50 people, and the capacity limit in places like shops, restaurants, churches and art galleries will be reduced from 50% to 25%. Restaurants would be required to collect contact tracing information from diners. It previously was a recommendation. Elrich says he doesn’t think new restrictions will hurt business as many restaurants weren’t getting 50% full in the first place because of diner concerns.

“None of us are happy to do this, but we are unhappy with where these numbers are going,” Elrich said on a media call. “Looking at Europe… when they opened too soon and as people moved indoors, cases moved up dramatically and countries shut down dramatically at a pace we hope we don’t have to go to.”

County officials had mulled the changes for weeks as cases rose under current restrictions. Elrich initially proposed the new rules go into effect on Friday, pending approval by the County Council, but the Council postponed a vote until Nov. 10.

At a Council hearing on Thursday, councilmembers expressed support for the changes, but questioned some specifics. Council Vice President Tom Hucker asked why restaurants will have to cut back capacity, while grocery stores and other retailers won’t.

“Both the grocers and the large retail stores like Home Depot represent large, giant global employers that have been extremely profitable through this entire pandemic,” said Hucker. “They are not going to go out of business and they’re not going to leave Montgomery County. Whereas our small, independent restaurants and bowling alleys are family owned in many cases and are already going out of business every week.”

Councilmember Craig Rice said restricting businesses, again, was a tough, but needed step. “I want to send a shout out to a friend of mine who is probably watching who has contracted COVID. They are scared to death and rightfully so. This is real, and I hope that people understand that we are tying to keep people safe.”

Councilmembers also questioned the effectiveness, and impact on local businesses, of taking action without surrounding jurisdictions doing the same. Earl Stoddard, Director of the Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management & Homeland Security, said his boss had been having weekly conversations with leaders in other jurisdictions.

“County Executive Elrich has been attempting to recruit other partners in this. There’s just a lot of trepidation.” said Stoddard. “I do not suspect by next week we will be alone on this issue.”

Elrich also urged families to make another difficult choice: to not gather for the holidays.

“It is hard to say this, but people would be vastly better off if they did not do the traditional holiday gathering,” Elrich said, suggesting Zoom or online celebrations instead. He says contact tracing shows family gatherings stand out as a way that people get infected.

Montgomery and Prince George’s counties have been more conservative in reopening compared to the rest of Maryland. Both have had the highest caseloads in the state and both have stayed in Phase Two of reopening, despite Gov. Larry Hogan authorizing a state-wide move into Phase Three in September.

Cases of the coronavirus have been trending up in D.C., Maryland and Virginia in the past week, as the nation has hit record high case numbers in recent days.

John Hopkins University data shows 38 states (including Maryland and Virginia) and D.C. have seen their cases trending up over the past week. The Washington Post’s tracker shows a 32% rise in new cases in the past week in the District, and a 22% and 14% increase in Maryland and Virginia, respectively.

Maryland reported 1,000 new coronavirus cases Wednesday — its highest daily count since Aug. 1 — and 10 deaths. The state has tallied 148,766 confirmed cases in all.

The state’s seven-day rolling positivity rate (which measures the number of infections out of all administered tests) stands at 4.1%. That number has inched up steadily from about 3% at the beginning of October.

Meanwhile, Virginia reported 1,157 new cases with a seven-day positivity rate of 5.7%. Its daily caseload has trended up since Oct. 20.

D.C. reported 77 new cases today and has a 2.7% positivity rate as of Oct. 31, the latest day for which data is available, which is within its criteria for moving to the next stage of reopening. However, its daily case rate has been trending up steadily since Oct. 22, from 7.2 cases per 100,000 people to 12.6 cases per 100,000 people by Nov. 2.

Experts say the fall and winter months could be a perfect storm for the spread of the virus. Some point to fatigue over wearing masks and social distancing rules, combined with the loss of safer outdoor gatherings. Many also worry about the holidays, which could likely means increased travel and indoor gatherings among family.

This story was updated to add new information from the County Council meeting. Jacob Fenston contributed reporting.