Tightening up

In recent days, work-from-home suggestions from Gov. Cuomo became mandates that half, then three-quarters of all employees (with industry and sector exceptions) stay put rather than traveling into the office. Now, as coronavirus cases exceed 7,000 statewide, the clampdown is complete: Other than businesses deemed to be essential, all workers are ordered to stay home.

Given that confirmed cases are spiking — with the asterisk that the reason they are rising so sharply is because testing is expanding exponentially — we support the measure as a temporary attempt to stop a flood of cases from drowning intensive care units and causing chaos in hospitals.

But what does temporary mean? Anyone?

Cuomo, who’s been commendably clear, candid and competent as this crisis has unfolded, should begin to explain the possible endgame here. Assuming cases keep rising at the current rate, how long should the city and state reasonably be expected to be at a near-total standstill? If it is conclusive that containment has failed and there is a critical mass of cases statewide, does that strengthen or weaken the case for a clampdown? Can it be that all scenarios — cases continuing to spike, leveling off or falling — argue for prolonging the freeze?

We know: It depends on what the public health experts recommend. But people whose livelihoods have been shattered, an economy and a city in near-total paralysis, with thousands of businesses hanging by a thread, deserve some sense of when and under what conditions evertightening restrictions might be loosened.