Photo By Darren McGee- Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
May 15, 2020 By Michael Dorgan
Governor Andrew Cuomo has extended New York state’s stay-at-home order for another two weeks.
The new PAUSE order–which was signed Thursday night–extends the existing May 15 stay-at-home requirement until May 28 for half of the state’s 10 regions, including New York City.
The PAUSE order has been in effect since March 22 to curb the spread of COVID-19.
The decision means that only essential businesses in five of the state’s 10 regions are permitted to reopen– and all non-essential workers in those regions will be required to continue to work from home. The regions still subject to these requirements are New York City, Long Island, Western New York, the Capital District and the Mid Hudson.
The five other regions will begin phase one of their respective reopening today having met the state’s seven health-related requirements. These regions are Central New York, North Country, Finger Lakes, Southern Tier, and Mohawk Valley.
Photo: Courtesy Of Gov. Cuomo’s office
New York City has only met four of the state’s seven metrics required to begin phase one re-opening but is on the right track, Cuomo said.
“All the arrows are pointed in the right direction and now the question becomes focused on reopening – people have to get back to work and the state needs an economy – but we have to make sure we don’t reopen too soon,” Cuomo said Thursday.
To meet the state’s threshold, a region must show a decline in hospitalizations and deaths over a 14 day period. A region must also have at least 30 percent of both hospital beds and ICU beds available and must also have sufficient levels of diagnostic and contact tracing capacity.
Cuomo said the state will continue to monitor the benchmarks before allowing the test of the state to reopen.
“We are doing this in a calibrated way and monitoring the data, facts and metrics every single day and using the lessons we’ve learned from others who have already gone through this,” Cuomo said.
The Finger Lakes, Southern Tier, Mohawk Valley, the North Country, and Central NY are ready to begin Phase 1 of reopening tomorrow.
The others can be UN-PAUSED the moment they hit their benchmarks.
New Yorkers be proud. Your actions bent the curve. pic.twitter.com/zSJ5YpyTGY
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) May 15, 2020
