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Citing a dramatic decline in COVID-19 numbers, Cuomo announced that certain restrictions on travel sports and outdoor entertainment spaces, including pro sports teams and performing arts centers.
Cuomo said that the state will be following the same model that they used to allow fans in the stands for the Buffalo Bills playoff game, including mandatory mask mandates, social distance requirements, and either a confirmed negative test or proof of a COVID-19 vaccination.
Beginning on Thursday, April 1, outdoor performing arts centers with a capacity of over 2,500 people can reopen at 20 percent capacity. Indoor event centers can open up to 10 percent capacity and must be outfitted with enhanced air filtration and purification systems.
Sports travel, which had been limited to contiguous counties and regions will also be opened up beginning on Monday, March 29, when statewide travel for sports and recreational activities will be permitted.
“New York has always been smart and safe all through this. We went from the highest infection rate in the United States of America to the lowest infection rate in America," Cuomo said on Thursday, March 18. "We have beaten this virus like no other state in the nation has and we've done it by being smart.”
Cuomo stressed that it’s important for New Yorkers to get out of their house as spring can represent “the beginning of a new season.”
“It’s been a long dark winter, a long dark year, one of the darkest experiences we’ve gone through in generations,” he said. “You have to go back to World War II to have had an experience of this magnitude and this depth, and it’s been difficult on a lot of levels.
“People talk about the disease and the economic impact, but it’s been mentally, socially debilitating, and depressing, and hard on families,” Cuomo continued. “The emotional toll that this has taken on people, I don’t think we’re going to begin to understand that for months.”
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