The city could consider reopening some nonessential businesses June if the number of novel coronavirus indicators continue to decrease, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Monday.
“We have our daily indicators. The state has their daily indicators. We are all working together. They’re all valuable measures — by both sets of measures, we’re clearly not ready yet,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio during his daily coronavirus press conference.
During the conferences, Mayor de Blasio updates the city on three numbers that his administration is using to track the progress of the novel coronavirus. The number of people admitted to the hospital suspected of contracting the virus dropped from 69 on May 8 to 55 on May 9, according to the mayor’s office.
The number of people testing positive for the virus also dropped from 17 percent on May 8 to 13 percent on May 9, and people currently in an intensive care unit suffering from suspected novel coronavirus complications slid from 540 to 537 on those same dates, according to the mayor.
During his coronavirus press conferences, de Blasio has repeatedly said decreases in those three categories need to be sustained for 10 days and two weeks before the city would consider easing up on social distancing measures or reopening nonessential businesses.
“I think it’s fair to say that June is when we’re potentially going to be able to make some real changes, if we can continue our progress,” said de Blasio.
Governor Andrew Cuomo’s March-issued New York On PAUSE Order is set to expire on May 15 but on Sunday the Governor issued an executive order extending the legal authority of the shelter-in-place order until June 6.
This story originally appeared on amny.com.
