New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday that New York City had no COVID-19 deaths for three straight days. There were only three COVID-19 deaths in the entire state on Monday. Despite the progress, the governor issued a stark warning for residents to continue to take the virus seriously — and the city announced it’s setting up checkpoints to inform visitors of quarantine rules.
“Our progress in New York is even better than we expected, thanks to the hard work of New Yorkers,” Cuomo said in a statement. “But we must protect that progress, which is why today we are adding another state to our travel advisory. We cannot go back to the hell we experienced just a few months ago — and surging infection rates across the country threaten to bring us back there — so we must all remain vigilant.”
The governor has ordered a mandatory 14-day quarantine for people traveling to New York from other states with high rates of infections. Visitors coming from 35 states are currently affected. While Delaware and Washington, D.C. were removed from the list, Rhode Island was added on Tuesday.
Several states, adding neighboring New Jersey, have recently noticed an accumulation in the cases. CBS New York asked Cuomo if new Jersey would go up to the quarantine list if the numbers kept increasing.
“I don’t know how you can quarantine New Jersey … They don’t fly to New York. The roads will be blocked and we’re not talking about blockades,” he said. “We will cross our hands and paintings with them to decrease the number.”
On Wednesday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio went further and delivered at a press conference that controls are being established on key access issues in the city.
“Travellers from those states [on the quarantine list] will get quarantine information. They will be reminded that this is mandatory and optional. They will be reminded that non-compliance with quarantine is a violation of state law. Sanctions,” de Blasio said, adding that in some cases fines can be as high as $10,000.
“These are serious things, ” said de Blasio. “If we need to maintain this point of fitness and protection in the city and ourselves, we will have to face the fact that quarantine must be constantly implemented to anyone who has traveled.”
In addition to the warning, many other precautions are maintained to help you prevent the spread of the virus. Restaurants can only offer outdoor seating and will have to provide a social distance, and giant gatherings are still prohibited.
This is a massive change since the beginning of the pandemic, when New York is the largest hot spot in the country. In early April, the state reported about 800 COVID-19 deaths according to the day.
There were a total of at least 417,589 cases shown in New York City and more than 25,000 deaths, according to fitness data.
Of the 70993 coronavirus verification effects reported to New York State on Monday, 746, a rate of 1.05%, were positive, according to the governor’s office.
On Sunday, Cuomo said in a statement that 6 million tests have been conducted, “and the numbers are pretty much where we need them to be, which is very clever news and indicates that our plan is working.”
“However, the context is important, and there are clouds of typhoons on the horizon in the form of new instances across the country and a lack of compliance here in the state, and I urge New Yorkers to remain wise in New York and local governments for good state advice,” he said.