Three regions of the state are ready for phase one of the reopening of the state’s economy, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Monday.
If there is no slippage, businesses such as construction; manufacturing and wholesale supply chain; retail for curbside pickup and drop-off or in-store pickup; and agriculture, forestry and fishing could restart.
Long Island is close to meeting the metrics, Cuomo said, but not quite there, hitting five of the seven requirements.
Certain low-risk business and recreational activities will be ready to reopen statewide on Friday, including landscaping and gardening; outdoor, low-risk recreational activities such as tennis; and drive-in movie theaters.
“We are starting a new chapter in the fight against this virus – we’ve worked together as a state to flatten the curve and the decline has finally reached a point where it is just about where we started this journey, so now we can turn to reopening,” Cuomo said. “As we approach May 15, we have put regional control rooms in place, which are made up of the top government officials and academic and healthcare professionals in that region, to watch the situation in each region develop and increase or decrease the activity and speed of reopening based on the metrics and guidelines. These control rooms are critical because we just made it over the mountain and nobody wants to go back to the other side now.”
He also named members of the “regional control rooms” that will monitor metrics during the reopening process, including the hospitalization rate, death rate, number of new hospitalizations, hospital bed capacity, ICU bed capacity, testing and contact tracing. They will be responsible for alerting the state if the metrics no longer meet the reopening guidelines and to then adjust the reopening plan.
LONG ISLAND
Regional Captain: Eric Gertler, ESD President and CEO
Kevin Law, REDC Co-Chair
John Durso, President of the Long Island Federation of Labor
County Executive Laura Curran
County Executive Steve Bellone
Tracey Edwards, Long Island Regional Director of the NAACP
The North Country and Central NY regions have met six of the seven metrics and could be ready at the end of the week.
The governor launched the state’s regional monitoring dashboard, which is available here.
This story will update
Other:
The US death toll surpassed 80,000 on Monday
New Covid-19 cases 488
New Covid-19 deaths in New York State: 161
New infections in Suffolk County since Sunday: 209
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