Thursday night Governor Cuomo extended New York state’s stay-at-home order or PAUSE until the end of May. The PAUSE order has forced all non-essential restaurants and businesses in the state to shut down while also requiring that New Yorkers wear face masks in public spaces and also maintain safe social distance from others.
New York’s PAUSE order has created the need for restaurants to get creative with their business models- some pivoting to creating hand sanitizer while others have shut down regular operations to open themselves up as food banks. The PAUSE order has also created some unintended consequences with noise compaints in Bushwick spiking as residents are stuck inside. The executive order signed on Thursday exempts some upstate New York areas from the lock-down but all city orders will remain in effect.
The order also continues New York’s state of emergency until June 13, with the caveat that this date may be amended or further extended.
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Five of New York’s 10 geographic regions are cleared to open when the initial stay-at-home-order expired Friday. Central New York, Mohawk Valley, North Country, Southern Tier and Finger Lakes are the five regions exempted.
New York City, which has met just four of seven benchmarks, is not among them.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said he approved of Cuomo’s decision not to extend reopening to New York City during his daily press conference and restated that the key metrics indicating the progress of a slowdown in the virus have not been adequately met. The Mayor continued on to say that the first half of June is the earliest that the city could begin to reopen.
COVID-19 hospitalizations rose from 59 on May 12 to 78 on May 13, the percentage of people testing positive rose from 11 percent on May 12 to 12 percent on May 13, but the number of ICU patients dropped from 517 to 506, city data show.
Cuomo said if any spike in infection rates is seen by the region, a hard stop would be put in place again. The NY Supreme Court has ruled that the primary elections will take place in late June. By executive order, the governor has approved all residents for absentee voting. Read our full article on voting in the primary to ensure that your vote is counted.
Cover Photo from Cuomo press conference
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