Tomorrow will be the final day of free COVID-19 testing at the FEMA-run site in Southwest Philadelphia that was opened last month amid a surge in demand for testing, the city Department of Public Health said.

Testing will be available Thursday from 7 a.m. until 5 p.m. at Cibotti Recreation Center at 7700 Elmwood Ave., the agency said.

The site, promised by President Joe Biden, had a planned capacity to conduct at least 500 tests a day.

— Robert Moran

BA.2, a relatively new omicron subvariant that has been called a “stealth variant,” has been detected in New Jersey, making up about 0.5% of COVID-19 specimens sequenced in the state in January.

While much is unknown about this version of the virus, public health experts in the Philadelphia region and across the country have said that BA.2 does not appear to make people sicker than the omicron variant behind the latest surge. The subvariant made up about 4% of sequenced cases in the United States last week, according to the CDC, and about 6% of cases in regions that include Pennsylvania, New, Jersey, and Delaware.

Despite its ominous nickname, “the important news is we still can pick up this variant. We are detecting this,” state epidemiologist Christina Tan said. “Only time will tell in terms of what the characteristics of BA2 illness are.”

» READ MORE: What to know about BA.2, the omicron subvariant

— Erin McCarthy

The omicron surge continues to show signs of relenting “each and every day” in New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy said Wednesday.

The average daily new cases have dropped 63% over the past two weeks in the Garden State, according to federal data analyzed by the New York Times, and new hospitalizations per capita have fallen 52% in the same time period. The daily percent positivity is down to less than 7%, though it is above 8% in the southern part of the state, health commissioner Judith Persichilli said.

Infection rates are also down to “pre-omicron” levels among school-aged children, Murphy said, a trend he called promising less than three weeks before the state’s universal mask mandate for schools and daycare centers is set to expire.

Yet Murphy and Persichilli said they still want to see a higher uptake of booster shots. About 49% of eligible residents have not received a booster shot.

State officials have declared February 23 to March 1 as “Boost NJ2 Week,” the second iteration of a state initiative that promotes the extra doses and offers walk-in clinics at Walmarts and other locations each day that week.

“Omicron is still among us,” the governor said. “It may have fewer targets, but it still is out among us.”

“The numbers are headed dramatically in the right direction,” he added. But “we are not yet at the warm temperatures that will take us outdoors for more and more of our regular activities, which we know makes us less susceptible to infection.”

— Erin McCarthy

With Philadelphia lifting its vaccine mandate on indoor dining, Sixers and Flyers fans attending games at the Wells Fargo Center will no longer have to show proof they’ve received their COVID-19 shots or had a negative test.

“Over the past two years, we’ve invested tens of millions of dollars in state-of-the-art health and safety measures at Wells Fargo Center, and those investments have been a major success. Now, we’re ready to start getting back to normal, and so are our fans,” Valerie Camillo, president of business operations for the Wells Fargo Center and the Philadelphia Flyers, said in a statement. “There’s simply no better place to see a game, concert, or show than Wells Fargo Center, and the atmosphere that made Broad Street famous is finally coming back.”

The Flyers play their next eight games at the Wells Fargo Center, beginning Thursday night against the Washington Capitals. The Sixers’ next game at home is Wednesday, March 2, against the New York Knicks.

— Rob Tornoe

It could be just a matter of weeks before the city’s indoor mask mandate ends, Philadelphia Health Commissioner Chery Bettigole said Wednesday, based on the trends in cases and positivity rates.

Hospitalization rates are likely to be lower than they have been over recent months, she said, because omicron has proven to cause less serious illness than the delta variant.

The tiered system introduced Wednesday was the result of discussions within the health department and with outside experts, and may be a unique approach to establishing when mandates are needed, Bettigole said.

“I’m not aware of a similar set of metrics in other places right now,” she said.

The system means, for the time being, people will be removing masks to eat indoors whether they’re vaccinated or not, while still staying masked for other indoor activities like grocery shopping or visiting a museum.

The change is a disappointment to people with health conditions that make them more vulnerable to COVID-19, or those who just felt a little safer dining indoors knowing everyone around them had to prove vaccination.

“There’s definitely a downside to doing this,” Bettigole said. “Because Philadelphia has a mask mandate we are still a much safer place to go.”

Bettigole credited indoor masking requirements with keeping Philadelphia’s COVID-19 case numbers lower than those in surrounding counties, and felt that warranted waiting for lower cases counts, hospitalizations, and positivity rates before lifting it.

“Rolling back the mask mandate before we hit the metrics puts us at risk of going backwards, of having cases multiply,” she said. “There’s a reason we’re keeping it as long as we are.”

— Jason Laughlin

The change in mandate policy reflected a better understanding of how COVID-19 spreads, Mayor Jim Kenney said Wednesday.

“I am glad that we have reached a point where we know much, much, much more about this virus and which strategies will help us manage its spread,” he said.

City health commissioner Cheryl Bettigole described the state of the pandemic today as significantly improved from just over a month ago, when the surge driven by the omicron variant peaked. There were an average of 189 new cases per day as of Tuesday, down 95% from the surge’s peak. The city’s hospitals had 300 patients with COVID-19 receiving inpatient treatment, down 80% from the peak. The test positivity rate was 2.9%.

“We no longer need to ask our city’s dining establishments to check vaccines,” Bettigole said.

She acknowledged, though, the role mandates played in encouraging vaccinations in the city. Philadelphia’s health clinics will offer $100 over the next six weeks to anyone receiving their series of vaccinations for the first time, Bettigole said. The money will be delivered through an app, or by mail, she said.

— Jason Laughlin

The Philadelphia Department of Public Health announced Wednesday a new tiered system for determining when COVID-19 safety mandates are needed.

Based on these metrics, the city now falls into the mask-precautions-only category, immediately ending the need for vaccine cards or a recent negative COVID-19 test to enter a business that serves food or drinks.

This would apply not just to restaurants, but to businesses such as hotels, bowling alleys, and the Wells Fargo Center. The city’s indoor mask mandate will remain in effect.

The tiered system is as follows:

Extreme caution: Vaccine mandate for dining establishments (with no testing option) and mask mandate remain in place when two or more of the following are true:

Caution: Allow a negative COVID-19 test done within 24 hours in lieu of vaccination for dining establishments as long as three or more of the following are true:

Mask precautions only: Do not enforce vaccine requirement for dining establishments when any three of the following are true:

All clear: Masks will not be required in public places when three of the following are true:

The easing of mandates doesn’t mean they’ll be gone for good, though. Future case surges or new variants could lead to a return of restrictions. The system is intended to create a transparent set of benchmarks that will give the public an understanding of when mandates will be introduced, and why.

Health officials said the department is relying on a combination of indicators, rather than any one, in an effort to capture the full scope of COVID-19′s presence in the city. A sudden increase in cases, for example, will be one of the first signs that the virus may pose an increased threat in the city, while hospitalizations will likely be the last indicator to decline over the course of a surge.

» READ MORE: Philadelphia ends vaccine mandate for indoor dining

— Jason Laughlin

Philadelphia is expected to introduce a tiered system Wednesday to determine whether businesses that serve food and drinks must require customers to show proof of vaccination, according to sources in the hotel and restaurant industry briefed on the plan.

The system would use a combination of case counts, hospitalizations, test positivity rate, and whether cases are trending significantly upward as benchmarks to determine whether businesses must request diners’ vaccine cards, can take a negative test result in lieu of proof of vaccination, or can operate without restrictions.

The tiered system will also determine whether masks are mandated for indoor public spaces, which are expected to stay in place for now.

Restaurant owners and the hospitality industry are eager for fewer restrictions, saying they have stifled business. Customers, though, are more ambivalent. Some, say they’ll feel less safe, while others said they were ready to move on from COVID-19 restrictions.

“My concern is that they’re more likely to spread it to me and that I could end up getting really sick,” Stephanie Fagbemi, a 26-year-old pregnant medical student who is still experiencing shortness of breath a month after contracting the virus.

West Philly resident Kevin Scott, 60, welcomed a potential “return to normal” with the lifting of vaccine mandates. Businesses and people’s mental health were suffering, he said.

“It’s time,” Scott said. “If you ain’t safe now, you ain’t never going to be safe.”

» READ MORE: Anticipated end of Philly’s vaccine mandate for indoor dining draws mixed reactions from diners and restaurateurs

— Jason Laughlin, Ximena Conde, and Michael Klein

COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to plummet across the region, though infection rates remain high, even as the omicron wave recedes.

Philadelphia is averaging 384 new COVID-19 cases a day over the past seven days, a 42% drop compared to two weeks ago and down from a pandemic peak last month of 3,924 cases a day, according to city data analyzed by the New York Times. Hospitalizations across the city are also down 50% over the past two week, but remain at high levels due to the omicron wave.

In Pennsylvania, case rates have fallen 61% over the past two weeks, while New Jersey has seen a 64% decline in new COVID-19 cases. Delaware, which ended its indoor mask mandate Friday, has also seen a 74% drop in new cases.

» READ MORE: What the latest numbers say about COVID-19 in the Philadelphia region

— Rob Tornoe

Here is a roundup of COVID-19 stories from across the United States and around the globe: