As COVID-19 cases make a sharp rise in states south of the Mason-Dixie line, New York is taking several measures to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen here.
After being the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic for months, New York is now one of the states with the least number of cases. Reports indicate that earlier this week, of the over 52,000 COVID-19 tests conducted, only 1% came back positive.
As New York City moves through Phase 2 of recovering from COVID-19, the city is preparing for Phase 3, which is set to begin on July 6. The next phase includes the opening of personal care services and restaurants operating with some indoor dining. However, state and city officials are scaling back on letting people eat inside of restaurants.
Viral videos have popped up on social media of large crowds in some parts of the city gathering outside of bars and restaurants with many people not wearing masks. One notable incident took place last Friday in Manhattan’s East Village where a video showed hundreds of people outside of a bar not social distancing and not wearing masks. De Blasio said that 6,100 restaurants received certification over the last two weeks to do outdoor dining.
“The most important thing is to keep us healthy and safe and not allow a resurgence,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “So, I’ve said all along, there’ll be ups and downs, there’ll be modifications. This is now after steady, steady progress, a point where we’re saying, look, on this one piece, we may need to slow down and think differently and approach it differently. But what is clearly working is outdoor dining.”
Cuomo announced plans to slow down the reopening of indoor dining in New York City as part of Phase 3 of reopening. He said indoor dining has been shown to pose risks in other states.
“Our reopenings have worked very well,” Cuomo said. “We’re not going backwards, we’re going forwards. A lot of these other states have actually had to go backwards because they started to reopen and they had to stop.”
The governor is calling on Pres. Donald Trump to issue an executive order requiring all Americans to wear masks in public.
The low number of new COVID-19 cases in New York is a big difference compared to states like Florida where health officials announced this week that the state saw 40,000 new positive COVID-19 cases during a five-day period. Coronavirus cases in the Sunshine State remain above 17%.
Cases outside of New York have gotten so bad that Cuomo announced on Tuesday a travel advisory for people coming from 13 states with increased COVID-19 cases. An example of the impact of traveling from heavily infected states occurred in Westchester County after an outdoor graduation ceremony. In total, 14 people tested positive for COVID-19. Health officials say the cases are linked to two families who recently traveled to Florida.
“As an increasing number of states around the country fight significant community spread, New York is taking action to maintain the precarious safety of its phased, data-driven reopening,” Cuomo said. “We’ve set metrics for community spread just as we’ve set metrics for everything the state does to fight COVID-19, and eight more states have reached the level of spread required to qualify for New York’s travel advisory, meaning we will now require individuals traveling to New York from those states to quarantine for 14 days.”
States on the travel advisory include Florida, Georgia, Texas, California and North Carolina. State health officials from those states say a lack of social distancing, not wearing masks and opening back up too soon are to blame for the increase. Face coverings are required in public in only 18 states. Wearing one drops the risk of transmitting COVID-19 to 3%.
“It’s imperative that we take the personal responsibility to slow the transmission of COVID-19 and embrace the universal use of face coverings,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Robert R. Redfield said this week during a congressional hearing. “Specifically, I’m addressing the younger members of our society, the Millennials and the Generation Zs––I ask those that are listening to spread the word.”
