Mayor Bill de Blasio said on May 21 that phase one of the city’s reopening could start sometime in the first half of June.
“I’m basing that on what we know today, I’ll put an asterisk,” de Blasio said during his daily novel coronavirus press conference.
Entering phase one would allow for construction, manufacturing, agricultural operations, and retailers to reopen with restrictions, according to New York state guidelines.
De Blasio told reporters that, although his administration would decide on an exact reopening date later this month, officials are looking right now at dates between June 1 and June 15. However, that time frame could change if the city sees and spike in new cases, hospitalizations, or admittances to ICUs.
“The goal obviously is to never have to go back to the same level of restriction that we’ve been in and God forbid go to even higher levels of restriction,” the mayor said. “If we are smart about this we’ll have some ups and downs, that’s normal … but the game plan we are trying to put together here is where you don’t have the big setback.”
De Blasio called Thursday a “pretty good day” in terms of his office’s coronavirus data. On Thursday, his administration reported that, since May 18, the number of New Yorkers admitted to hospital suspected of having COVID-19 — the disease caused by the novel coronavirus — dropped from 63 to 60.
The number of people currently in an ICU at one of the city’s public hospitals also dropped from 483 to 477, the mayor said, but the percentage of people that have tested positive for the virus increased slightly from 8 percent to 9 percent.
This story first appeared on AMNY.com.
