Counties in Western New York will be allowed to start the first phase of reopening Tuesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday, after local officials were able to identify enough employees that could be deployed as contact tracers to meet the state’s standard.
New York also appeared to shift the regional requirements pertaining to COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths over the weekend, allowing the region to meet those benchmarks.
Last week, neither Western New York nor the Capital Region had met the state’s metrics to start the first phase of reopening, which allows construction, manufacturing, and some retail curbside pickup to resume operations.
That changed Sunday, when the state appeared to alter the definition of when those requirements could be met. That allowed both Western New York and the Capital Region to satisfy the metric, but neither had enough contact tracers to start reopening.
Cuomo said Monday that officials in Erie County, the city of Buffalo, and other municipalities in the region had identified enough contact tracers overnight to begin reopening.
“We’re opening regions that have hit the data points, have hit the metrics,” Cuomo said. “It’s been a long, painful period, but we start to reopen tomorrow.”
Western New York will become the sixth region of the state to begin the first phase of reopening, following Central New York, the Southern Tier, the North Country, the Mohawk Valley, and the Finger Lakes.
That means the Capital Region and Mid-Hudson are the two remaining regions upstate that have not been given the green light to start reopening.
It’s likely that the Capital Region, which also met the state’s adjusted standards for hospitalizations and deaths over the weekend, will be approved to start reopening this week. Cuomo said Sunday he was planning to work with the region to find more contact tracers.
The Mid-Hudson region may take longer to reopen. The region includes more rural counties, like Sullivan County, but it also includes areas that were among the hardest hit by COVID-19: Westchester County and Rockland County.
According to the state’s analysis of where regions stand, in terms of reopening, New York City is furthest away from the first phase, having only met three of the state’s seven metrics. Long Island still has too many deaths, and not enough contact tracers, to qualify.
As New York begins the first phase of its economic revival, Cuomo said they’re bringing in two internationally known experts to monitor the state’s progress: Dr. Michael Osterholm from the University of Minnesota and Dr. Samir Bhatt from Imperial College London.
Bhatt joined Cuomo via video call for the announcement Monday.
"As you reopen, New York must continue to watch the data and follow the science," Bhatt said. "Our team is focused on rigorous modeling to track ... the reproduction of the virus going forward."
The number of people requiring treatment for COVID-19 in New York continued to dip Monday, with 5,840 people in the hospital as of Sunday, the state’s latest data. That’s a small drop from Saturday. Of those, 1,538 have required treatment with a ventilator.
An additional 106 people died from COVID-19 in New York Sunday, bringing the statewide death toll to nearly 23,000.
