Bill de Blasio says residents gathering without masks puts ‘lives in danger’
New York mayor Bill de Blasio has criticized residents who were seen gathering without masks outside bars at the weekend despite the city’s ongoing stay at home guidelines, saying they were putting “lives in danger”.
Almost 90,000 people have died in the US from Covid-19 so far during the pandemic, far more than any other country, according to Johns Hopkins. More than 15,000 of those deaths were in New York City, which is still subject to stay-at-home measures even as many other US cities begin to open back up.
“We’re not going to tolerate people starting to congregate. It’s as simple as that,” de Blasio said on Sunday. “If we have to shut places down, we will.”
After a cold start to May, the weather was fine and sunny on Friday and Saturday. But the mayor said that was no excuse to break social distancing guidelines.
“If you start to form groups of people and then two, three, five and then it becomes six, it becomes 10, it becomes 15 that violates what we’re saying about social distancing and that puts lives in danger,” de Blasio said.
Officials may go so far as to shut down establishments that are violating social distancing rules, de Blasio said, asking residents to call 311, the city’s non-emergency hotline, if they see this type of crowding.
Bars and restaurants in the city have been restricted to takeout and delivery service since mid-March, when coronavirus cases started to soar, but some in Manhattan were allowing people to dine and drink inside on Saturday.
After a rash of violent social distancing arrests that appeared to disproportionately impact people of color, the city eased up on social distancing enforcement this week. Police officers have been told not to break up small groups or confront citizens about failing to wear a mask.
As the weather heats up, though, more and more New Yorkers are flocking to public spaces and familiar haunts for a sense of normalcy after spending most of the last two months cooped up inside.
Parks, boardwalks and beaches attracted big crowds on Saturday, though city beaches aren’t officially open and won’t be for the upcoming Memorial Day weekend.
Beaches on Long Island and in other parts of the region will be open for the holiday, but de Blasio said opening the city’s grand strands for swimming and merriment “is not safe” and “is not the right thing to do in the epicenter of this crisis”.
In fact, de Blasio said, the city’s beaches could be closed off completely to public access if people don’t follow social distancing rules. Fencing is being installed at entrance ways and could be rolled out if beaches – meant now only for nearby residents to get some exercise – become overcrowded or people violate swimming bans, he said.
De Blasio said beaches could open for wider use sometime in the summer, with lifeguard training over the next few weeks for a possible return to duty.