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New York City, the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, will begin reopening in a phased manner on June 8, bringing about 4,000,000 employees back to work, Governor Andrew Cuomo has said. Cuomo also tweeted the future road ahead.
Reopening does not mean returning to the past. Reopening means moving toward a new, safer normal.
Wear a mask. Get tested. Social distance.
It’s up to us to keep this progress going.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) May 29, 2020
According to a news agency report, New York City has been shut since mid-March as coronavirus ravaged the metropolis, which has reported over 199,038 coronavirus cases so far and close to 20,000 deaths. US has so far reported more than 1,747,085 COVID-19 cases and over 102,835 fatalities — both the numbers highest in the world.
Regions across New York State began their phased re-opening this month but New York City remained shut as it did not meet the seven health-related criteria necessary for the first phase of reopening.
NYC is on track to begin reopening the week of June 8th.
We will stay on track by focusing on the hotspots.
We know down to the zip code where the infection rate is higher than average.
We will meet the need where it is greatest.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) May 29, 2020
Addressing a press conference on Friday, New York Governor Cuomo said the city is on track to meet all the metrics and will enter phase one of reopening on June 8.
“Phase one should bring about 4,000,000 employees back to work in New York City. Remember that reopening does not mean we’re going back to the way things were…It is reopening to a new normal, it’s a safer normal,” Cuomo said.
The first phase of re-opening allows construction; manufacturing and wholesale supply chain; retail for curbside pickup and drop-off or in-store pickup; and agriculture, forestry and fishing to resume operations.
The seven metrics that define whether a region can re-open businesses are decline in total hospitalisations, decline in deaths measured by the three-day rolling average of daily new hospital deaths not exceeding 5, fewer than two new hospitalisations per 100,000 residents, hospital bed capacity regions must have at least 30% of their total hospital beds available before a phased re-opening, availability of 30% of ICU beds in a region, diagnostic testing capacity and contact tracing capacity.
New York City mayor Bill de Blasio said, “We are excited to get to the point of a restart for New York City and when I talked to the people of this city this morning I told them that the indicators were moving absolutely in the right direction.”
