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The Capital Region will be the seventh in the state to restart economic activities amid the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak after identifying and training 430 “tracers” to meet the final metric mandated by the state to allow reopening.
The Capital Region joins Central New York, the Finger Lakes, Mohawk Valley, North Country, and Southern Tier to meet the necessary benchmarks established by the state.
Long Island and the mid-Hudson Valley still have not seen a 14-day decline in hospital deaths or fewer than five deaths from COVID-19 over a three-day rolling average, though both are making progress battling the virus.
“New Yorkers are doing everything we can, and our response has probably been the most demanding in the country because we had the highest number of cases,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at his daily briefing held on Tuesday, May 19 in Nassau County at Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset.
Phase 1 of the reopening plan proposed by state officials allows nonessential manufacturing, construction and retail businesses to reopen, but with social-distancing and density-reduction precautions in place. Retail is only allowed curbside or in-store pickups.
As of Friday, May 15, Cuomo said any region that hits the state’s seven metrics can reopen immediately.
Cuomo said that there were 105 new deaths in the past 24 hours, the lowest overnight total since Thursday, March 26, and the state continues to see approximately 300 new COVID-19 cases each day.
There have been 1,439,557 New Yorkers tested for COVID-19, with 351,371 testing positive for the virus, according to the state Department of Health. Since the outbreak began in mid-March, there have been 22,729 COVID-19-related fatalities.
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