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New York City shows no signs of easing two months coronavirus emergency shutdown. For the vast majority of all New York State residents, a stay-at-home order that was due to expire on Friday will now remain in effect until June 13, unless individual regions can meet specific criteria.
The blockade has left the cultural and commercial capital of the United States wondering what the future holds. While many European cities begin the process of reviving their economies, the Big Apple, the epicenter of the United States coronavirus, remains closed as authorities fear causing another wave of COVID-19 infections.
“I am bored to tears,” she told the AFP news agency Rhoda Glass, 80, who at this time of year typically bounced off the various charities where she works as a volunteer. “I just hope we get back to normal appearance very soon.”
Nowhere near normal
That wish seems unlikely with Mayor Bill de Blasio saying New York will have to wait until June before a decision can be made about when nonessential businesses, such as its world-renowned museums, can reopen.
Sipping cocktails at a rooftop bar, watching a concert at Madison Square Garden, or being engrossed in the Times Square crowd: Symbolic New York State activities like a bustling and exciting metropolis seem unimaginable for the foreseeable future.
Beloved Broadway theaters have said they won’t reopen until at least early September.
Leaders have warned New Yorkers that they may have to endure the city’s notoriously suffocating summer months without having access to its hugely popular beaches.
Authorities have already said the pools will remain closed and insist it is too early to say whether schools will be able to open in September for the new academic year.
“We have to be smart,” Governor Andrew Cuomo said numerous times about the reopening, noting that countries that eased restrictions too quickly had to close again after cases increased.
COVID-19 is believed to have killed more than 20,000 New York City residents since it registered its first case in early March, accounting for nearly a quarter of coronavirus deaths in the United States.
5 regions enter phase one
More than 700 New York state residents died every day at the height of the crisis last month. This week’s numbers have been hovering around the 160 mark.
A handful of less-affected regions will begin reopening on Friday, but they represent a small fraction of New York State’s 20 million residents.
The governor said Thursday that five regions of upstate and central New York would begin Phase One of reopening on Friday, according to CBS News York. The others can only start after reaching a series of benchmarks.
Earlier this week, Cuomo said New York City still needed to meet three more benchmarks before it’s ready to reopen. Those benchmarks include a decrease in the number of new hospitalizations and an increase in the total number of hospital beds and ICUs available.
New York City is far from meeting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for reopening, which includes a 14-day continuous decrease in deaths and new cases.
Cuomo is committed to the criteria, even when other states reopen without meeting them.
While protests against the containment measures have multiplied across the United States, New Yorkers have largely followed orders, although the sunnier weather has seen residents flocking to parks in recent weeks.
“It sucks, but it is what it is.”
Even though emergency field hospitals have dropped and sirens are noticeably less frequent, residents must wear masks outdoors and applaud essential workers at 7:00 p.m. they are daily reminders that the crisis is far from over.
A recent spike in children infected with a rare inflammatory syndrome similar to Kawasaki disease that Scientists say it is linked to COVID-19 It has also rekindled fears about the virus.
“Continuing the blockade is the right decision. It really sucks, but it is what it is,” the 40-year-old merchant Shelby, who declined to give her last name, told AFP.
The crisis has exposed inequalities in one of the most diverse cities in the United States, with African-American and Latino communities dying in disproportionately large numbers.
It has also left hundreds of thousands of people unemployed, and the city is facing a multi-million dollar financing crisis that threatens a financial crisis that has not been seen since the 1970s. That requires federal aid.
New Yorkers are concerned that the Big Apple will never be the same again, consoled the fact that it has recovered from other tragedies, namely the September 11 attacks and Hurricane Sandy.
“We will recover. We are New Yorkers. That is what we do,” Glass said.
