Visitors will be allowed at 16 hospitals around New York State, nine of them in New York City, as part of a pilot program, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Tuesday. They will be required to wear personal protective equipment, including masks, and will be subject to temperature checks.
In March, state officials issued guidance asking hospitals to suspend visitation as the virus appeared to be rapidly spreading.
“It is terrible to have someone in the hospital and then that person is isolated, not being able to see their family or friends,” Mr. Cuomo said. He added that the program was “to see if we can bring visitors in and do it safely.”
The governor’s announcement comes as only three regions in downstate New York will remain under the state’s shutdown orders; the Albany area can begin reopening on Wednesday, he said.
New York City, Long Island and the counties just north of the city known as the Mid-Hudson region all have yet to meet at least two of the seven health-related benchmarks that the governor set for parts of the state to start restarting their economies. Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City reiterated on Monday that he did not expect the city to meet the state’s criteria to begin to reopen until “the first half of June.”
Mr. Cuomo — who arrived at his daily briefing wearing a face mask — also said that the state would allow Memorial Day festivities, so long as they had no more than 10 people. The state will also allow vehicle parades, provided that they are held safely and participants adhere to social distancing.
Mr. de Blasio said on Tuesday that nearly 16 percent of the city’s 1.1 million students would be asked to attend online summer school for about six weeks after the academic year ends on June 26 — about four times as many as were asked to attend summer school last year.
On Monday, police officers answering a complaint found about 60 students studying at a Hasidic yeshiva in Brooklyn, the latest of several episodes that have ignited tensions between the authorities and Hasidic Jews over enforcement of social-distancing rules. The school was closed.
Statewide, another 105 people had died, Mr. Cuomo said Tuesday. Data was released on Monday that offered the most granular picture yet of the pandemic’s rampage through New York City, reinforcing earlier signs that the virus had disproportionately affected immigrant, black and Hispanic residents.
Reference: New York Times
