What you should know
- Vaccinated New Yorkers can remove their masks in most situations on Wednesday, and restaurants, stores, gyms and many other businesses can be fully occupied again if all customers are vaccinated.
- The metro resumed 24-hour operation this week. Midnight curfews for bars and restaurants will disappear at the end of the month. Broadway tickets were on sale again recently
- After a year of ebbs, surges, reopens and closures, the city hopes vaccines are turning the tide forever. About 47% of residents have received at least one dose so far.
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NEW YORK – More than a year after coronavirus closures sent “the city that never sleeps” into intermittent lethargy, New York could be wide awake again this summer.
Starting Wednesday, vaccinated New Yorkers can remove their masks in most situations, and restaurants, stores, gyms, and many other businesses can return to full capacity if they check vaccination cards or apps as proof that all clients have been vaccinated.
The metro resumed 24-hour operation this week. Midnight curfews for bars and restaurants will disappear at the end of the month. Broadway tickets are on sale again, although the curtain won’t rise on any shows until September.
Authorities say now is New York’s time to shed the image of a city that the virus brought to its knees last spring, a poignant recovery shown on the latest cover of The New Yorker magazine. It shows a giant door partially open to the city skyline, letting in a ray of light.
Has the Big Apple returned to its old self?
“Maybe 75%. … He’s definitely coming back to life, ”said Mark Kumar, 24, personal trainer.
But Ameen Deen, 63, said: “A complete sense of normalcy will not come anytime soon. There are too many deaths. There is too much suffering. There is too much inequality. “
Last spring, America’s largest city was also the nation’s deadliest coronavirus hotspot, the site of more than 21,000 deaths in just two months. Black and Hispanic patients have died at markedly higher rates than whites and Asian Americans.
Hospitals were filled with patients and corpses. The refrigerated trailers served as temporary morgues and tents were pitched in Central Park as a COVID-19 room. The busy streets of New York were silent, save for the sirens of ambulances and the nightly screams from apartment windows for health workers.
After a year of ebbs, surges, reopens and closures, the city hopes vaccines are turning the tide forever. More than 42% of all New Yorkers have been fully vaccinated as of Tuesday, including the newly eligible age group 12-15. Nearly 53% of the state’s adult population is fully vaccinated, while the city will soon reach the 50% milestone. Deaths have risen to about two dozen a day in recent weeks, and new cases and hospitalizations have plummeted since a winter wave.
Vast swaths of the country and the world are also beginning to return to normal after a crisis that has been blamed for 3.4 million deaths worldwide, including more than 587,000 in the United States.
In Connecticut, Governor Ned Lamont lifted all remaining outdoor restrictions and removed all other remaining rules on the coronavirus indoors. Like New York, masks are no longer required indoors as of Wednesday, but companies can set their own rules.
New Jersey has also raised capacity limits for indoor dining, places of worship, retail stores, gyms, hair salons, amusement parks, swimming pools, performances and other catered events beginning Wednesday. Click here for full details on specific changes pursuant to Governor Phil Murphy’s executive order.
However, Murphy is the only one resisting in three states on the CDC’s new mask guidelines. The governor has said he hopes the Garden State can get to the point where it is comfortable adopting the new CDC guidance “in a matter of weeks.”
“While we have made tremendous progress, we are not out of the woods yet. Most New Jerseyans are not yet vaccinated and we are not checking anyone’s vaccine status at the door when you go to the grocery store or hardware store. for example, “Murphy said. “I don’t know how we can expect workers to say who is vaccinated from who is not, and it is unfair to put the burden on business owners and front-line employees to monitor every customer.”
Las Vegas casinos are returning to 100% capacity and with no distancing requirements. Disneyland in California opened late last month after being closed for more than 400 days. Massachusetts announced this week that all virus restrictions will expire on Memorial Day weekend.
Summer music festivals like Lollapalooza are back, the Indy 500 is gearing up for more than 100,000 fans, and the federal government says fully vaccinated adults no longer need to wear masks.
France will also reopen on Wednesday, with the Eiffel Tower, Parisian cafes and cinemas and the iconic Louvre museum bringing visitors back for the first time in months.
In New York City, Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi says the risk of COVID-19 outdoors is low, but is still concerned indoors, saying the number one concern is unvaccinated people.
“This includes both children and people for whom immunity from vaccination has not been realized,” added Chokshi. “I recommend continued use of the mask in many indoor settings until even more people are vaccinated.”
Despite that caution, New York City is ready to wake up, and Mayor Bill de Blasio has declared it the “summer of New York City.”
There are other signs that New York is picking up business. Some 80,000 city employees returned to their offices at least part-time this month, joining the many municipal workers whose jobs were never performed remotely.
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