Waiting game
Indoor eats will shut, but when?
COVID-related closures could be coming soon to the Big Apple — but the governor and mayor can’t seem to agree on when.
In an interview Friday on WNYC, Mayor de Blasio speculated that access to gyms and indoor dining could come to an abrupt end as early as the first week of December.
“That is what’s going to happen,” he said on the Brian Lehrer show.
Those measures would be triggered if the state declares New York City an “orange zone” based on an increased number of people testing positive for coronavirus.
But hours later during an afternoon press briefing, Gov. Cuomo pushed back on the prediction.
“I don’t prophesize,” Cuomo said, noting that by the state’s standards the city would have to hit a 3% positivity rate as a seven-day average for 10 days.
Cuomo pointed out that according to the state’s measurements the state average is at a 2.5% positivity averaged out over seven days.
The city’s measure puts the positivity rate at 3.02%.
COVID measures gathered by the city and state are not always consistent because city data are based on when tests were taken, while the state numbers are based on when results are reported.
“The 2.5 would have to go to a seven-day average of 3, and then it would have to be there for 10 days,” Cuomo said. “So that I think gets you past early December anyway.”
De Blasio predicted Thursday that such closures are an inevitable result of rising COVID-19 infections.
On Friday, he provided a more specific time frame based on his administration’s assessment of state measures.
New York City public schools ended in-person learning indefinitely on Thursday after the city hit its own 3% COVID positivity rate threshold it relies on to make that decision.
De Blasio announced the controversial decision Wednesday after hours of dizzying back-andforth with his own health advisers, Education Departmen officials and Cuomo.
Hizzoner delayed his morning press briefing that day for five hours before eproviding details about the decision.
Earlier that morning, city schools Chancellor Richard Carranza had initially told union leaders that schools would close, reversed that directive about 20 minutes later and ultimately returned to his first directive.
De Blasio and Cuomo engaged in several phone conversations as well that day, at least one of which included Cuomo’s suggestion that de Blasio use state statistics, which showed a lower positivity rate, as a way to forego shuttering schools.
The mayor also made clear Friday that the city’s Test & Trace data do not show restaurants and gyms to be significant sources of COVID-19 spread, but said they could quickly become vectors given the rising number of cases.