New York will keep nonessential businesses and schools closed until at least May 15th, Gov. Cuomo said Thursday, as the state evaluates whether the rate of infection from COVID-19 has reached a level that would allow employees to safely return to work.
That means employees, and students, will spend another month in quarantine, during which the state expects to come up with a firm plan for reopening the economy.
“So, one month we’ll continue the close down policies,” Cuomo said. “What happens after that? We don’t know. We will see depending on what the data shows.”
New York is currently coordinating with six other states on a long-term plan for reopening schools and businesses, with the possibility that schools will remain closed for the remainder of the academic year. There’s been no decision on that yet.
The extension announced Thursday comes after an additional 400,000 people filed claims for unemployment last week, bringing the total over the last five weeks to 1.2 million, according to Melissa DeRosa, Cuomo’s top aide.
For a point of comparison, during the Great Recession in 2008, New York lost 300,000 jobs, DeRosa said.
The massive wave of claims has continued to clog the state’s system for filing unemployment claims, but DeRosa said they’re still working to improve the process.
“We’re working together to try to find the best way possible to expedite this,” DeRosa said.
New York continued to report a series of positive trends on Wednesday, with both the net number of hospitalizations and intubations down again. The number of hospitalizations is now at 17,735 statewide, with 4,367 intubations. There were 2,019 discharges Wednesday.
Another 8,505 people tested positive for the disease in New York Wednesday, according to state data released Thursday. A total of 550,579 people have been tested statewide.
Another 606 people died from COVID-19 Wednesday, Cuomo said, bringing the current statewide total fatalities to 12,192.
