SCHOOLS OUT TILL SUMMER
...& maybe longer: Cuo
Gov. Cuomo announced Friday that all schools in New York state, including the city’s public schools and all colleges, will be shuttered for the remainder of the academic year.
The move came just over two weeks after Cuomo blasted Mayor de Blasio for making the same call regarding city schools on April 11, insisting the governor was the one who had authority to make that decision.
“We’re going to have the schools remain closed for the rest of the [school] year,” Cuomo said Friday, noting kindergarten-through-12thgrade schools and all state-college facilities will remain closed and remote learning will continue for the remainder of the school year.
Not only is school now out, but some parents and teachers told The Post this week that they had given up on live online lessons.
That decision affects 4.2 million students across the state.
“We must protect our students. We have to protect our educators,” Cuomo said.
The governor said he will announce a decision regarding summer schools by the end of the month, adding, “You would need to see a drop, or a stabilization in the infection rate for a period of time, because kids will be kids.”
De Blasio said last month that he’s “confident” the city’s 1.1 million-student school district will reopen come September, but Cuomo remained cautious.
“There is no decision on the fall, because the fall is a long time away,” Cuomo said Friday.
The state will approve plans to reopen schools and colleges statewide, and Cuomo said those plans should consider certain aspects, including: “How can schools monitor the spread of COVID-19?”; how do schools “instill parents’ confidence and reinforce student safety?”; and “when and how will extracurricular activities reopen?”
Schools, said Cuomo, “should start to prepare their plans now because this is going to be a real exercise,” as he explained the difficulties of social distancing in that setting.
“How does a school socially distance, you know, this bizarre set up here. Right? Look at this room — how do you run a school like this? How many more rooms would you need to do this?” Cuomo asked at his press conference. “How many more buses do you need to socially distance on a bus? There’s a whole set of questions, so they should start working on those plans.”
The schools announcement came after Cuomo said the state recorded another 289 deaths as a result of the coronavirus in a 24hour period. “Lower than it has been but still tragic and terrible,” Cuomo said of the number of new fatalities — 22 of them in nursing homes — bringing the total COVID-19 deaths in the state to 18,610.
Statewide coronavirus-related hospitalizations, patients in intensive-care units and the number of those in ICUs who are intubated continue to trend downward, Cuomo said, calling that “good news.”
But, the governor added, “for me, every day,” the death toll number “just wipes that all away.”
Cuomo said the state is still reporting roughly 1,000 new coronavirus hospitalizations a day, with a total of 954 people hospitalized Thursday with COVID-19.
“That looks like the number is flattening, is plateauing at about 900, 1,000 cases,” Cuomo said.
According to state data released Friday, 17.5 percent of new coronavirus cases in New York over the past three days came from Manhattan, 17.4 percent from Brooklyn, 12.8 percent from The Bronx, 11.9 percent from Queens, 10.1 percent from Nassau County and 7.8 percent from Westchester.