What you should know
- The first injection of the vaccine was administered to an intensive care nurse in Queens on Monday when the New York City indoor dining hall closed for the second time since the start of the pandemic.
- There are also more restrictions on the table; the governor inaugurated new yellow zones in some parts of the state and warned: “We could go to closure” if the current trajectory does not change
- Hospitalization rates have risen almost across the board in New York State, as a result of the latest national flood of cases. Cuomo reported more than 300 new admissions Monday
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NEW YORK – A New York City restaurant indoor dining ban went into effect Monday and the possibility of tougher closures looms as officials try to curb a resurgence of the coronavirus.
The crackdown, announced last week by Governor Andrew Cuomo, is a severe blow to a struggling industry that has turned the city into a culinary capital. New York City is home to roughly 24,000 restaurants, and owners have warned of layoffs and closures if limited to take-out orders and cookouts this winter.
Last week, the 21 Club in midtown Manhattan, a favorite of the power elite for nearly a century, announced that it was closing indefinitely due to the pandemic.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday that he sympathized with restaurant owners and workers, but pointed to the growing number of cases and hospitalizations. More than 1,700 patients were hospitalized in the city with COVID-19 infections as of this weekend, nearly triple the number a month ago.
“We have to recover this industry. We have to take back the restaurants we love. But it’s going to take time, and in the meantime we must stay safe because this second wave is very, very real, “De Blasio said during his press conference.
Cuomo has faced strong criticism for closing indoor dining rooms in all five boroughs when the city has lower hospitalization and positivity rates than most of the rest of the state and the state’s contact tracing data shows that bars and restaurants accounted for less than 2 percent of exposures in September.
To that, the governor says it is a density problem. And it cannot be underestimated.
“The virus is spreading much faster in New York City,” Cuomo said Monday. “Anyone who doubts that was not here in the spring or has an unimaginably short memory.”
Cuomo had said he was trying to avoid a worst-case scenario with overwhelmed hospitals by forcing a rollback to PAUSE, with all non-essential businesses closed.
“If we don’t change the trajectory, we could be heading for closure. That’s something to worry about,” the governor said. “We went back to where we were.”
Hospitalization rates have risen almost across the board in New York State, as a result of the latest national flood of cases. Cuomo reported more than 300 new admissions Monday, bringing the statewide total to 5,712 (the highest since May 18). Daily deaths are also on the rise, although those and hospitalizations are much lower than in April. The length of admission has also been profoundly shortened.
New York State reported more than 100 COVID deaths (128) on Tuesday for the first time in months. To date there are already more than 28,000 deaths in the state due to the virus.
While it is good news, New York is not insensitive to national trends, which are extremely alarming. Cuomo and others, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, agree that the numbers at the local and national level will continue to rise well into January. Cuomo’s goal is to lessen the hit, hence a revised winter plan that prioritizes hospitalization rates, but also takes into account positivity rates, the risk level of economic activity, transmission rates, and the density of population in the equation.
Meanwhile, the United States continues to fight a crisis that appears to be on the way to intensify over the course of the next month despite the promise of a vaccine. To date, the country has confirmed more than 16 million COVID cases and surpassed 300,000 deaths, according to data from NBC News.
Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned that the US could see its tragic death toll near 450,000 in February without aggressive action to contain the anticipated spike in holidays in addition to the surge that has been running for over a month across the country.
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