PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine’s governor announced a plan Thursday to apply a curfew to some businesses in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

The 9 p.m. closing time will apply to all outdoor and indoor amusement venues, movie theaters, performing arts venues and casinos, the administration of Democratic Gov. Janet Mills said. It will also apply to businesses that offer seated food and drink service, such as social clubs and restaurants.

The new rules are slated to apply until Dec. 6, Mills said. She said the new rules are intended to reduce extended gatherings during the holiday season.

“Returning to normal life sometime next year first requires us to survive the holidays this year,” Mills said.

Mills said more steps to reduce spread of the virus could be coming in the weeks ahead if Maine does not start to get the virus under control.

In other coronavirus news in Maine:

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NEW CASES

The latest average positivity rate in Maine is 1.86%. State health departments are calculating positivity rate differently across the country, but for Maine, The Associated Press calculates the rate by dividing new cases by test specimens using data from The COVID Tracking Project.

The seven-day rolling average of the positivity rate in Maine has risen over the past two weeks from 1.28% on Nov. 4 to 1.86% on Nov. 18.

Maine officials have reported more than 9,700 cases of the coronavirus and 171 deaths since the pandemic began.

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CONTACT TRACING

With COVID-19 surging at the same time as flu season, the Maine Center for Disease Control will investigate coronavirus infections only based on a positive lab test.

Contact tracers will no longer investigate people who had close contact with someone who’s infected, even if they’re showing symptoms, unless there’s a positive test, the Maine Center for Disease Control said.

The change is because of the arrival of influenza, which has symptoms resembling COVID-19, said Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine CDC.

The “adjustment ensures that all available COVID-19 response resources can be focused on lab-positive cases,” he said Wednesday.

Dr. Dora Anne Mills, the chief health improvement officer for MaineHealth, said the change in policy makes sense.

“The state has recognized that they have staffing limitations. You need to spend those resources where they can be most effective, on positive cases,” she told the Portland Press Herald.

With so many cases, it was already becoming difficult to investigate every person who may have had close contact with those who are infected.