New York, Nov 6 (EFE) .- The Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, announced this Friday that he will reinforce the presence of the National Guard at the state’s airports with the aim of implementing new measures to control access to the region and prevent the arrival of people infected with the coronavirus for Christmas.
“I want people to know that this is serious,” Cuomo said in a call with the press, in which he explained that the troops will have the mission of verifying that everyone who arrives at a New York airport has tested negative in a coronavirus test, which passengers must take before traveling to the area.
“People shouldn’t land here if they don’t have proof upon arrival that they have tested negative,” he said.
It is a change of course in the measures implemented in New York to try to prevent infected people from reaching the area, since until a week ago the state simply required international travelers and those from the vast majority of states of the country to be confined for 14 days after arrival.
Now, not only will they have to present negative coronavirus tests upon landing, but they will have to take another test 4 days after arriving in New York.
Cuomo also affirmed that anyone who does not comply with the regulations must necessarily remain in quarantine, and stressed that both the airport authorities and the airlines will help in the implementation of the measures.
The New York Governor’s announcement comes after a steady increase in coronavirus cases in New York State in the last month, and the location in recent days of new outbreak areas in neighborhoods of the Big Apple, especially in Staten Island .
“Obviously we are in a different phase with covid,” Cuomo said this Friday. “We’ve been talking about it for weeks but now we have to admit it. The numbers are changing all over the world, across the country. The challenge for our state is managing the increase.”
This Thursday, New York reported 3,000 new cases of coronavirus, the highest daily number in months.
In New York City, that number stood at 700, above the 550 barrier set by the city’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, to sound the alarm.
In the Big Apple, the average percentage of positive cases in the last week is 1.93%, which is why De Blasio has affirmed that, if it reaches 2%, he is considering suspending the permission that bars and restaurants have to receive to customers inside the establishments at 25% of their capacity.
“Now a second wave really threatens us in New York City,” the mayor told local media this Friday, who a day earlier had highlighted two areas of Staten Island that are already considered areas of new outbreaks.
The United States yesterday reached the figure of 9,600,324 confirmed cases of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and 234,876 deaths from covid-19, according to the independent count of Johns Hopkins University. EFE
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| Q: SYS: en-ES: 07002000: Sanitation and health: Epidemics and pests |
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