Amid rising COVID-19 case numbers, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced just one category of new restrictions at a press conference on Monday: high-contact sports.

Sports including basketball, football, and hockey will now be prohibited in the District. The restriction applies to high school extracurricular sports activities and competitions, as well as local sports leagues — though it does not apply to professional or university sports.

Recreation centers and clubs must end all athletic activities for high school athletes, not just high-contact sports. For middle school students and younger, clinics and drills can continue, provided that the activities do not require direct contact and that young athletes are separated into groups of 12.

The District Department of Parks and Recreation will no longer issue permits for organized sports activities in public parks, Bowser said. Organizations with existing permits can still hold sports activities, provided they are non-contact and for children younger than high school age or for adults.

The District’s coronavirus metrics have been worsening for weeks. The 7-day rolling average of cases per 100,000 — which tracks the trend of how many new cases of the virus are being added — has been increasing since mid-October, and has now surpassed its high from the first wave. In May 5, it peaked at 27.56 new cases per 100,000; on Monday, it had reached 34.33.

Additionally, 8.5% of patients in D.C. hospitals have COVID-19. Hospitals were operating with about 83% of their beds filled on Saturday, a slight decrease from Friday’s number, 86.6%. The District considers 90% “insufficient capacity” in the local hospital system.

More than 700 people in the District have died of COVID-19.

DC Health Director LaQuandra Nesbitt said contact tracers are finding that some new cases appear to be tied to Thanksgiving celebrations.

“We are noting that individuals are reporting some activities related to the Thanksgiving holiday,” Nesbitt said.

But District officials have been reluctant to reimpose a new stay at home order, instead making edits to specific parts of its Phase 2 restrictions. Nesbitt on Monday expressed concerns about balancing the public health imperatives of the moment with impacts on the business community, and called into question whether residents would adhere to more onerous restrictions.

“It would be much easier for us as the health department to advise the mayor to move us to a stay at home posture, but that would not be widely acceptable by the residents of our community, and the degree to which we would get adherence to that may also be debatable, now 9 months into the response,” said Nesbitt, pressed about the possibility of broader action. “We have to think about how we can make these incremental changes that will give us some benefit and impact based on the populations that are driving our increasing cases.”

Not everyone agrees with the direction of the District response, though.

“It is past time for DC to move back to Phase 1,” incoming Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George tweeted.

Asked about plans to increase enforcement of public health rules, Bowser called on individual residents to hold themselves accountable for following the District’s mask mandate and maintaining social distancing.

“The thing about human beings, they will be human beings,” she said. “You can see it in workplaces, for example, people who haven’t seen each other. We put up all this wonderful plexiglass, but then they come in and they want to talk, so they go to the side of the plexiglass … that’s a very simple example of how the best guidelines and rules are in place, but we have to be vigilant.”

Starting Monday, the District will add new public data to its coronavirus dashboard: It will track “outbreaks,” defined as at least two cases related to the same location in a 14-day period. Specific information about the exact location of the outbreaks (i.e. the specific restaurant or school) will not be available; the data will be split into type of location, including different kinds of schools, restaurants and bars, food and retail establishments, congregate residential buildings, offices and more. The data will not include outbreaks related to healthcare settings. It will be updated weekly on Mondays.

The first batch of outbreak data shows that 27.5% of outbreaks since August 2020 have been tied to colleges and universities, followed by K-12 schools (17.4%), childcare settings (13.8%), and restaurants and bars (13.8%).

Bowser also announced that the District would provide a one-time $1,200 stimulus payment to District residents who had applied and were deemed eligible for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance support before November 30. The funding for the stimulus payments will come from CARES Act relief.

The District anticipates reaching around 20,000 residents with the extra money, which will be sent out on a rolling basis in December. Pandemic Unemployment Assistance covers gig workers, contractors, self-employed workers, and others who aren’t eligible for traditional unemployment help. PUA benefits were approved under the CARES Act, but they’re currently set to expire on December 26, if they’re not extended by Congress.

Workers will not have to fill out an additional application to receive the stimulus payment from the District.