In the midst of a national arm wrestling between the White House and governors over the reopening of the economy, the state of New York announced today that it will reopen three regions from Friday, while Florida had to backtrack with the provision of beaches and parks because social distancing was not met.
The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, announced that the state that has been the undisputed epicenter so far of the outbreak in the United States, will begin the first phase of the reopening promoted by the federal government of Donald Trump in three of the 10 regions that it has the district.
The three regions are concentrated in the upstate and do not include New York City, the worst hit in the district.
Despite having more than 335,000 infected and more than 26,600 dead, Cuomo was convinced that “all arrows are pointing in the right direction.”
“We have gotten over the worst and now we can move smartly toward reopening, and that’s May 15, this Friday. Local regions across the state should start preparing and so should the people,” the governor said.
The switches, which could activate a reverse gear with the reopening, are the rate of infection and hospitalization, the number of hospital beds available or the numbers of positive testing and tracking, among others, according to the EFE news agency.
With these directives in mind, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio predicted that if the pandemic curve continues to slow, the city could begin the first phase of opening next month.
The first phase involves the reopening of certain economic activity, such as construction, manufacturing, and other “low-risk businesses,” such as gardening, recreational activities such as tennis, and drive-ins.
New York is just one of the states that announced the reopening of its economy and has been one of the most cautious.
In Florida, on the other hand, Governor Ron DeSantis, a staunch ally of Trump, began the reopening even as the pandemic curve continues to grow.
The state has almost 41,000 infected, more than 1,170 deaths and, unlike New York, the numbers are not slowing down.
Despite this, the reopening began in 64 of the state’s 67 counties, with the exception of Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward.
They reopened hairdressers and beauty salons by appointment and complying with social distancing, with masks and with a 15-minute interval between clients to clean and disinfect everything.
The beaches were also enabled, but in Naples, on the west coast, for example, the authorities had to close them after a few hours because people went en masse and did not respect social distancing.
Something similar happened last week at South Pointe, a park on the southern edge of the city of Miami Beach, across from the Port of Miami.
Before the crowd and people without masks, it was closed again and now it has been reopened but only during the week and without the obligation to wear masks, a measure in open contradiction to the rest of the state’s deconfinement plan.
Meanwhile, after nine of the 48 infected inmates in the state died, several civil rights organizations today asked DeSantis to release all those at risk of contracting coronavirus.
The United States continues to have the world’s leading coronavirus outbreak with more than 1.34 million infected and nearly 80,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
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