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Horse Racing Tracks Can Open in New York in June, Cuomo Says - The New York Times

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Cases and deaths in New York State

0
5,000
10,000 cases
March
April
May
7-day average
New cases
Total Cases
353,136
Deaths
27,953
Includes confirmed and probable cases where available

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Credit...Emma Howells/The New York Times

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo said Saturday the state would allow horse racing tracks and the Watkins Glen International auto racing track to open without fans on June 1, opening the door for televised events at those venues.

“We can have economic activity without having a crowd, that’s great,” Mr. Cuomo said. “We can do that in this state. But no crowds, no fans.”

“Remember, the problem here are crowds and gatherings,” he said.

Mr. Cuomo listed several horse racing tracks, including Belmont Park on Long Island, as being eligible for reopening in June. Watkins Glen International, which was set to host a NASCAR race in August before the pandemic arrived, is also eligible to open next month.

The news of a renewed economic engine came as major indicators, such as new hospitalizations and virus-related deaths, continued a steady decline. The number of new deaths went up slightly, to 157, up from 132 reported a day earlier. The number of total deaths had remained under 200 in the last week, according to state data. About 105 people died in hospitals and 52 in nursing homes, according to the data.

“That number has been stubborn,” he said. “We don’t want to go back to the hell we’ve gone through.”

The number of new cases also saw a decline, 400, compared to 437 reported on Friday.

“It’s interesting to look at the curve, how fast we went up and now how relatively slow the decline has been,” Mr. Cuomo said. “Spike happens quickly, but resolves slowly.”

Credit...Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

The announcements of the sports venues restarting operations was another step in the state’s reopening. On Friday, five of the 10 New York regions were given the green light to resume a sanitized version of nonessential businesses operations, including construction, manufacturing and curbside retail.

Mr. Cuomo also threw a lifeline to eager beachgoers on Friday when he announced that a consortium of four neighboring states — New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware — had agreed to reopen beaches and other waterfronts by Memorial Day weekend provided local governments enforced social distancing restrictions and reduced capacity.

Local governments, however, are allowed to make their own judgments on opening beaches; in New York City, where infection rates have abated at a slower rate, beaches will remain closed

Other news announced during the governor’s briefing on Saturday:

  • A moratorium on elective surgery has been lifted in Westchester and Suffolk counties. The postponement of such procedures has had a huge economic impact for hospitals across the state.

  • Mr. Cuomo said New York was in desperate need of federal funding to fill a $61 billion gap in the state budget. He urged Washington senators to support a $3 trillion bill the House passed Friday — though that legislation has little hope of being passed. “We need funding,” he said. “Let’s put politics aside.”

  • The overall number of people hospitalized for coronavirus-related symptoms continued to decline. About 6,220 people were hospitalized as of Saturday; 2,077 were in I.C.U.s and 1,674 were intubated, according to state data.

Credit...Juan Arredondo for The New York Times

With warm weather arriving this weekend, New York City is again working to reduce crowds at parks in Brooklyn and Manhattan, including deploying police officers to limit access to the popular Sheep Meadow in Central Park, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

But the city would also “reset” its approach to enforcing social distancing, Mr. de Blasio said at his most recent daily briefing. Police officers would now focus on breaking up large gatherings, with the goal of avoiding giving summons, he said.

The Police Department would also no longer be asked to enforce orders requiring people to wear face coverings if they cannot properly social distance, Mr. de Blasio said.

Sheep Meadow slowly began to fill with people early Saturday afternoon, with sunny weather and temperatures in the mid-70s. By about 2 p.m., police officers closed off the entrance to the grassy expanse, telling parkgoers that it was too full.

Small crowds formed outside the entrances to the meadow as people were turned away, with many staring, disappointed, into their phones, revising afternoon plans.

Takuya Akasa, 31, was craning his neck over the fence, looking for his friends.

“If they let someone out, they should let someone in, right?” he said. “It’s just to release stress.”

More than 10 miles away at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, Mayor Bill de Blasio told city park workers giving out masks that most New Yorkers were doing their best to protect each other when they go out in public amid the pandemic.

“It’s a beautiful, beautiful day, lots of people are going to be out,” Mr. de Blasio told the workers. “I think what’s happening more and more New Yorkers get it. We are human beings. We are not used to this.”

At Coney Island in Brooklyn, people strolled along the boardwalk and the beach, largely maintaining distance from one another. Victor Goitia, 61, a bus driver who came to the beach to fly kites with a friend, said he was frustrated by the continuing stay-at-home orders.

“I see very responsible people doing what they’re supposed to do,” he said. “This isn’t like Central Park, Williamsburg, Orchard Beach — why does the rest of us have to suffer because of this?

As New York and New Jersey begin to gradually reopen, including hospitals resuming elective surgeries, the region faces a new issue: shortages at blood banks.

Ideally, blood banks maintain reserves that can last for seven days, but with the closing of schools, houses of worship and businesses — which typically provide about 75 percent of the region’s blood supply — reserves have reached “dangerously low” levels, the New York Blood Center announced this week.

For the last two months, banks across New York City, Long Island, Hudson Valley and New Jersey have only been able to maintain reserves large enough to last one to three days, depending on the blood type, said Andrea Cefarelli, the senior executive director of recruitment and marketing at the New York Blood Center.

“Hospitals are preparing to return normal operations, which will mean that they are starting to treat cancer patients, those with sickle-cell, and eventually surgeries,” Ms. Cefarelli said. “The need for blood will increase as our hospitals return to normal.”

All blood types are needed, Ms. Cefarelli said, but O-, which is universally accepted, is especially needed.

To build up its reserves, the New York Blood Center is planning on holding about 10 weekly blood drives. (Before the pandemic began, the organization was hosting about 600 drives per month.)

Those who are able and willing to donate can schedule an appointment at a mobile drive or can visit one of the New York Blood Center’s 19 donor centers in New York and New Jersey. Interested donors can locate the nearest center by typing their zip code here.

As a safety precaution, the New York Blood Center is encouraging donors to make appointments and having its staff wear face masks, Ms. Cefarelli said. People who meet the donation criteria must also wear a face covering while donating, which takes about an hour.

Those experiencing flu or Covid-19 symptoms are not eligible to donate; anyone who has been in contact with someone who has been tested positive for the virus or with someone suspected of having had it in the last 14 days are also not eligible to donate.

Fishing charters and other boating rentals can open for business on Sunday morning, Governor Philip D. Murphy announced on Saturday, further paving the way for the state to open the Jersey Shore.

The announcement came two days after Mr. Murphy signed an order allowing beaches, boardwalks and lakeshores to open by Memorial Day weekend, the traditional start of the busy season for beaches in the region.

Mr. Murphy said charters and boat rental shops must enforce social distancing and maintain customer logs to help state officials with contact tracing, if necessary.

The Jersey Shore is a critical part of the state’s economy, drawing tourists from New York, Connecticut and other surrounding states. Mr. Murphy said the falling number of new cases and new deaths have led state officials to conclude that it can take tentative steps to open parts of the shore.

“Public health creates economic health,” he said.

Mr. Murphy also announced that the federal government had approved $1.4 billion in aid for New Jersey Transit, whose budget has been hammered by social distancing measures that have forced people to work from home.

“I cannot overstate how vital this funding is,” Mr. Murphy said.

There were 115 new deaths reported on Saturday in the state, bringing the total to 10,249.

The complaint came in last month from a resident of Kingston, a city in New York’s Hudson Valley: A local barbershop was still performing haircuts, in violation of New York’s emergency shutdown orders to thwart the coronavirus.

A buildings investigator made four visits to the shop to investigate the claim, but each time La Lima Barbershop at 678 Broadway was dark.

The complaint was left unresolved until this week, when the proprietor of the shop, Joseph LaLima, was hospitalized for the coronavirus, setting off a furor in Kingston, about 90 miles north of New York City.

Mr. LaLima had never stopped cutting hair, despite Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s order. But he was not doing it in his shop; he was doing in his home — in the back of the shop.

“He said do not open up your shops, barbershops, beauty parlors, nail salons, tattoo parlors,” Mr. LaLima said on Friday, referring to the governor. “So I didn’t.”

Mr. LaLima, who spoke just after his release from a four-day hospitalization, began to get agitated. “It said you can work from home,” he said. “678 Broadway is my home!”

But according to state officials, Mr. LaLima did violate the order. The March 21 rule did not just order the closure of the physical spaces where services like manicures and haircuts are performed; it required services like nail-painting and buzz cuts to cease completely.

“These services cannot be provided while maintaining social distance,” the order reads.

But Mr. LaLima was not satisfied. “I am aggravated to the nines,” he said. “Is Cuomo going to pay me? Is he going to make up the difference? Is he going to pay my taxes? Is he going to pay the heat and electric? Is he going to feed my family?”

Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

For three weeks, a small town in northern New Jersey kept vigil over Officer Charles Roberts.

Since he had collapsed at home and had been revived by fellow officers, they had prayed for him and placed signs on their doors, windows and lawns that read “#ROBSTRONG.”

But Officer Roberts never made it back home to his wife and three children.

On Thursday, three days after he died at a Manhattan hospital from complications of the coronavirus, the people of Glen Ridge, which is about 12 miles west of New York City, paid him one last honor.

By the hundreds they filed out of their homes and stood on their porches, their front yards and the sidewalks.

They placed their hands over their hearts as the hearse carrying his body made its way to the cemetery. Many wore blue and orange, the colors of the New York Mets, Mr. Roberts’s favorite baseball team, and saluted as the hearse drove by, escorted by dozens of police cars and motorcycles from nearby towns and cities.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in this town or anything close to it,” said Stuart Patrick, the mayor of Glen Ridge.

Credit...Hannah Yoon for The New York Times

New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware have jointly agreed to allow beaches and lakeshores to open next Friday for Memorial Day weekend, but at reduced capacity and with restrictions, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Friday.

But local governments will be allowed to make their own decisions about whether beaches reopen in their jurisdictions, including in New York City, where Mayor Bill de Blasio said that city-run beaches would not open.

Mr. Cuomo’s announcement of the agreement came a day after the governors of New Jersey and Delaware, Philip D. Murphy and John Carney, said their states would allow beaches to reopen by Memorial Day weekend, the traditional start of those areas’ busy seasons.

Credit...Libby March for The New York Times

With parts of upstate New York beginning a gradual reopening, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo issued an executive order late Thursday night extending stay-at-home orders for other regions, including New York City, that do not meet the state’s criteria to begin a limited reopening.

Under the new order, the five regions of the state that have not met key requirements — which include declines in new positive virus cases and deaths, and increases in testing, hospital capacity and contact tracing — will remain shut down through May 28.

On Friday, Mr. Cuomo clarified at his daily briefing that the remaining regions, which include New York City’s suburbs and the Buffalo area, would be able to reopen once they met the state’s benchmarks.

Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

For almost two months, much of daily life has been halted in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut as officials sought to bring the coronavirus outbreak under control.

But with the virus showing signs of retreat, officials across the region have turned their attention to reviving the economies of their states.

This week and next will offer some of the first crucial tests of whether those plans will work and a window into what “normal” life may be like in the months ahead.

Here is a look at what types of businesses, services and public places are expected to reopen, and when, in each of the three states:

On March 20, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo issued an executive order putting New York “on pause.” Under the 10-point plan, all of nonessential businesses had to close by the evening of March 22. Mr. Cuomo extended the order once in April, and again on Thursday for a majority of New Yorkers.

On Friday, five of the state’s 10 regions became eligible to begin “phase one” of the state’s reopening plan. The five regions are:

  • the Finger Lakes, including Rochester

  • the Southern Tier, which borders Pennsylvania

  • the Mohawk Valley, west of Albany

  • the North Country, which includes the Adirondack Mountains.

  • and Central New York, which includes Syracuse

The following types of businesses can resume in those regions, provided that certain public health measures are in place:

  • Construction, manufacturing and wholesale trade.

  • Some retail businesses — including those that sell clothing, electronics, furniture, books, sporting goods, shoes, flowers, jewelry and other types of goods — may open for curbside service only.

  • Other activities that are allowed include drive-in movies, landscaping and gardening businesses and “low-risk recreational activities” like tennis, a sport with built-in social distancing.

As of Wednesday, elective surgeries were allowed in 47 New York counties; state court officials said this week that judges and staff members would begin returning to courthouses in 30 upstate counties on May 20.

State residents have been mostly required to stay at home under an executive order in effect since March 21. Gov. Phillip D. Murphy’s order makes exceptions for trips to visit businesses considered essential: getting takeout food restaurants, procuring medical services or to meet other urgent demands.

Mr. Murphy said this week that under a new executive order, some nonessential businesses would be allowed to resume operations at various points this month. Among the changes:

Most Connecticut residents have been under orders to stay at home as much as possible since mid-March. But the state has not been hit quite as hard by the virus as New York and New Jersey, and officials envision what amounts to a broader, faster reopening.

Officials announced earlier this month that restaurants, offices, retail establishments and hair salons would be allowed to open on May 20 at 50 percent capacity with proper health precautions in place.

More specifically:

  • Restaurants will be open for outdoor dining only; menus will need to be disposable or posted on boards; and silverware must be packaged or rolled.

  • Offices can open but companies have been advised to encourage employees to continue to working from home.

  • Retail businesses are required to close fitting rooms, create physical barriers at checkout and install markers that indicate six feet of distance.

  • Hair salons can open, but can see customers by appointment only and must close their waiting areas.

Connecticut officials have also said that colleges and universities in the state can reopen in stages over the summer and fall and that summer camps are on track to begin in late June.

The coronavirus outbreak has brought much of life in New York to a halt and there is no clear end in sight. But there are also moments that offer a sliver of strength, hope, humor or some other type of relief: a joke from a stranger on line at the supermarket; a favor from a friend down the block; a great meal ordered from a restaurant we want to survive; trivia night via Zoom with the bar down the street.

We’d like to hear about your moments, the ones that are helping you through these dark times. A reporter or editor may contact you. Your information will not be published without your consent.

Reporting was contributed by Maria Cramer, Michael Gold, Sarah Maslin Nir, Matt Stevens, Andrea Salcedo, Edgar Sandoval, Nate Schweber, Alex Traub and Katie Van Syckle.

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