New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Friday that the Big Apple, which was the global epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, is close to meeting the necessary requirements to begin its reopening on June 8, a announcement that arrives on the day with the lowest number of deaths (67).
During the first phase of return to normality, the construction sector, manufacturing and non-essential retail businesses that have in-store pick-up service, as well as agriculture, fishing and forestry, will be able to resume activity.
Until now, New York City was the only part of the entire state that had not yet met the seven sanitary markers required to enter phase one.
For now, the requirements that the city is reluctant to meet but are close to tackling are those relating to the available number of workers who track the virus and hospital capacity.
In this sense, the markers require that the use of beds is below 70% and that there is a sufficient reserve of personal protective equipment to guarantee the safety of health workers.
During his daily press conference, Cuomo assured that the entry into this first phase will cause the return to activity of some 400,000 workers in the city and asked for caution, masks, tests and distancing so as not to make mistakes.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which manages the city’s metro and will be in charge of ensuring public health in the bus and train system, will also resume activity.
Cuomo added that health authorities will work with special emphasis on the “hot spots” affected by the virus, with special emphasis on data segmented by zip codes.
“We are delighted to begin this phase because the markers are about to be met,” added New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who joined Cuomo’s press conference by videoconference to express his enthusiasm for the news.
FIVE REGIONS GO TO PHASE TWO
As the city begins to prepare to reopen, five of the ten regions of New York State will be able to advance towards phase two of the reopening plan, which will mean the reopening of office activity, in the real estate sector (management of properties and sample houses, for example), as well as shops and businesses such as hairdressers and barber shops, which may operate with certain restrictions.
The five regions (Central New York, North Country, Finger Lakes, Southern Tier and the Mohawk Valley), correspond to most of the territory of the state except New York City, Long Island and the main urban centers such as Albany, the capital. , or Buffalo.
In this phase two, companies will be able to return to their offices as long as there is no more than 50% occupancy in buildings, carry out temperature controls, and provide masks and other types of sanitary measures if it is not possible to guarantee the two meters of safety.
During this stage it is still prohibited to hold meetings in small areas and physical meetings between employees will have to be limited and comply with the rules of social distancing.
STATISTICS DOWN
Regarding the statistics of the pandemic, the state of New York continues to seal positive data at the end of each day and has registered the lowest number of deaths to date, with 67 deaths occurred yesterday Thursday compared to the 74 recorded on Wednesday.
The second lowest number of infections has also been recorded, with 152 positive cases during Thursday, below the 176 that were registered on Wednesday.
“We have always looked at the metrics to reopen and they are transparent,” defended Cuomo, who insisted that they have increased the capacity to do tests, which in his opinion provides them with more information to make decisions and offers “immediate” trends on the tracking of the virus day by day.
The governor added that they want to be very rigorous so as not to reopen too quickly and make mistakes that could cause outbreaks of the virus, as has happened in Germany, South Korea or China.
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