The mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, warned this Monday that the city may be forced to impose another “total closure” of the activity in the coming weeks due to the increase in cases of covid-19.
“I think there is the possibility of having to make a complete pause, a total closure in the coming weeks because we cannot allow this rate,” De Blasio said about the spike in infections in an interview with CNN.
The mayor’s warning comes on the same day that the country -including New York City- began putting the vaccines against covid. De Blasio recalled that even with the good news of the vaccine, we must not lower our guard in terms of measures to avoid infections.
“Remember, we are still in this fight, we still have to take precautions, but there is light at the end of the tunnel,” de Blasio wrote in a message on social networks.
A shot of hope has arrived in New York City. The #COVID19 vaccine is here.
Our frontline medical workers and nursing homes will be our top priority.
Remember, we’re still in this fight, we still need to take precautions, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
The New York mayor stressed that transmission levels are in figures not seen since May and, if they continue, will threaten the capacity of hospitals.
“We have to protect lives, we have to protect the ability of our hospitals to save lives. And when this situation is reached, you have to start closing the most sensitive areas, ”De Blasio explained.
The authorities have already made several decisions, including prohibiting consumption inside bars and restaurants, a measure that took effect on Monday after being announced on Friday by Governor Andrew Cuomo.
The governor, for his part, also referred to the mayor in similar terms, noting that if “the trajectory (of infections, hospitalizations and others) is not changed, we will go to a closure.”
Since last September 30, locals in the city could serve food and drinks inside, although the maximum capacity had been reduced to 25% of its capacity.
Now we return to the previous situation, in which restaurants can only serve on the terraces -something that complicates the arrival of the cold- or sell food and drinks to take away.
De Blasio, however, made it clear that it is foreseeable that the restrictions will also reach other sectors, something that Governor Cuomo has also suggested, who is the one who has the final decisions in his hand.
The mayor insisted that it is necessary to slow down the rate of infections, especially now that vaccinations have begun: “This is the last great battle against the coronavirus here in New York. I’ve been telling people, we have a tough December, a tough January, we are going to fight one more battle ”.
“And then the vaccine will have been administered and done its job. We have to be disciplined in this last opportunity to ensure that we fight the coronavirus ”, he stressed.
New York was the great epicenter of the pandemic in the United States last spring, but then it managed to control the crisis during the summer and most of the fall, with contagion levels much lower than those in many parts of the country.
In recent weeks, however, the indicators have worsened again, both in the Big Apple and in the rest of New York state, where some 20 million people live.
As the authorities announced this Monday, hospitalizations for covid-19 currently exceed 5,700 in the state and, of the almost 160,000 tests carried out the previous day, just over 9,000 (5.66%) were positive, while 83 deaths were registered.
Today’s update on the numbers:
Total COVID hospitalizations are at 5,712.
Of the 159,844 tests reported yesterday, 9,044 were positive (5.66% of total).
In total, since the pandemic began, New York state has accumulated more than 35,000 deaths from coronavirus and the United States as a whole is close to 300,000.
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