Cuomo STILL refuses to give New Yorkers an end date to lockdown despite new hospitalizations being HALF what they were before shutdown and instead lectures people about going out without masks
- New York’s daily deaths on Sunday were down to 96 and there were 230 new hospitalizations across the state
- The city is just 1% from having enough free hospital and ICU beds per Gov. Cuomo’s reopening requirement
- It remains unclear exactly how many contact tracers have been hired – 2,250 are needed and the city will only say that more than 1,000 have been hired
- Over the weekend, scores packed out the city’s parks and streets with take-out cocktails from reopened bars
- Most wore face coverings or masks but some, including in Long Island, did not
- Cuomo slammed them on Monday and said it was ‘not smart’ to flout the guidelines
- Thousands in other states, where masks are not being enforced, returned to reopened bars over the weekend
- New York’s state parks and beaches are open but the relatively cool weather over the weekend kept many inside
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Cuomo on Monday fumed at people for not wearing masks
Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday refused again to give an end date to New York City’s lockdown despite the number of new hospitalizations lowering to 230 – less than half what they were the day the city shut down.
Cuomo’s requirements are that the city have 30% of its hospital and ICU beds free and that there are enough contact tracers – 2,250.
The city will only say that it has hired ‘well over 1,000’ contact tracers. As of Monday, 29 percent of hospital beds were free and 29 percent of ICU beds were free.
De Blasio last week announced another threshold – having fewer than 375 people in ICU beds at one time. As of Monday morning, the number as 427.
Cuomo said on Monday that only the state’s requirements will be used.
‘There’s only one set of numbers. We have state wide criteria. They are the same all across the state. We know where we are.
‘People can speculate, people can guess. I’m out of that business. We all failed at that business.
‘All the experts – they were all wrong. So I’m out of the guessing business. We watch the numbers and prepare as the numbers drop.
‘I don’t want to guess,’ he said.
Thousands across the country were seen packing into pools, bars and beaches to enjoy the long weekend without wearing any protective equipment. Not every state is enforcing mask-wearing like New York but social distancing is being advised across the country.
New York City is 1 percent off its target ICU and hospital bed capacity and it still needs more tracers but the city won’t specify exactly how many have been hired, just that the number is more than 1,000
In New York, every region of the state apart from New York City is gradually reopening but bars and restaurants are still not meant to be open for dine-in service.
Despite the rule, crowds packed into a Long Island bar on Friday. The bar’s owners have since said people were sheltering from the rain.
On Sunday, there were 96 deaths across the whole state of New York.
The total death toll is now more than 23,000.
Cuomo said on Monday of anyone who does not wear a mask: ‘It’s not smart.
‘Be smart. I’ll talk about the masks until I’m blue in the face.It’s inconceivable to me that the front line workers have a lower infection rate than the general population.
‘My colleague said yesterday it was stupid. That’s another way of saying not smart.
‘The number goes down until you go out and don’t do the mask and then the number will go up.
People in Madison Square Park on Sunday. Many weren’t wearing masks but tried to stay 6ft apart from other small groups
Bars around Manhattan and Brookoyn have begun reopening on a take-out basis which has spawned a street drinking culture. Pictured, people in the East Village on May 24
Some wore masks on the Coney Island boardwalk but others didn’t as they went for a bike ride on Sunday
‘And if they’re not smart, the number will go up and then we’ll have to slow down the reopening which is what you’re seeing all across the country.
‘Our number’s going down. The rest of the country, the number’s going up.
‘They haven’t even looked at the history on this… Sometimes you pick up a little hint. We had the 1918 pandemic.
‘You look at the places that didn’t close… it defies common sense.’
He refused to give a timeline for New York City reopening but said it was his standards and his alone that would get the city there, not Mayor Bill de Blasio.
There is growing impatience in New York City for businesses to reopen. Landlords are struggling to collect rent payments from retail and office tenants and millions are out of work.
Scores of people took to the streets over the weekend for take-out cocktails which they enjoyed in parks and city streets.
The NYPD is not enforcing open carry laws for the duration of the pandemic.
