Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced a rough plan to reopen New York amid the coronavirus pandemic, which could have some businesses open starting mid-May.
Cuomo said that “with certain precautions,” some construction projects and manufacturing jobs may be able to resume in certain parts of the state.
State officials are paying attention to “three basic dials” that will determine when and how to open up the state’s economy: the number of hospitalizations, the results of antibody testing and the number of overall infections.
“Phase one of reopening will involve construction and manufacturing activities, and within construction and manufacturing, those businesses that have a low risk,” said Cuomo.
The state would then, according to the governor, take two weeks to monitor flare-ups. Cuomo said businesses would have to consider what precautions to take.
“They have to think about how they’re going to reopen with this quote-unquote new normal,” he said. “What precautions are they going to take in the workplace, what safeguards are they going to put in place.”
Cuomo said that New York City will most likely be behind the rest of the state in the process of reopening.
“Downstate New York is going to be more complicated,” he said. “You can’t do anything in New York City that you don’t do in Suffolk, you don’t do in Nassau, you don’t do in Westchester.”
“The big factor here is what people do,” he said. “It depends on what people do, how smart, how disciplined they are through this whole process.”
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