Cuomo Orders Tighter Restrictions in New York

New York state, with 6% of the U.S. population, now accounts for around half of all cases in the country.

Here are the highlights of Cuomo’s executive order, which takes effect Sunday at 8 p.m.:

— Healthy people under 70 should limit outdoor activity to getting groceries and medicine, but they may exercise, walk outside and participate in other noncontact physical activities if they stay 6 feet away from others.

— Mass transit will keep running, but people should not use it unless it they absolutely must. Roads will remain open.

— Nonessential gatherings of any size for any reason are banned.

— There are stronger restrictions for people who are 70 and older, have compromised immune systems or have underlying illnesses. Those rules include wearing masks when in the company of others and not visiting households with multiple people.

— Businesses considered nonessential must keep all of their workers at home.

— Essential businesses that can stay open include: grocers and restaurants, health care providers, pharmacies, gas stations, convenience stores, banks, hardware stores, laundromats and cleaners, child-care providers, auto repair shops, utility companies, warehouses and distributors, delivery services, plumbers and other skilled contractors, animal-care providers, transportation providers, construction companies, and many kinds of manufacturers.

— Businesses that violate the order will be fined and forced to close. The state does not plan to fine people who violate the regulations, Cuomo said.

“These provisions will be enforced,” the governor said at a briefing in Albany. “These are not helpful hints.”

Another regulation issued by Cuomo on Friday requires all personal-care businesses like hair and nail salons and tattoo parlors to close Saturday.

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City had pushed for days for a “shelter in place” order, and the governor, who is often at odds with the mayor, had repeatedly dismissed the idea, saying he did not want to quarantine New Yorkers in their homes.

On Friday, Cuomo chafed at calling his new directive a shelter-in-place order, saying that the term evoked for him active-shooter situations and nuclear war. “Words matter,” he said.

Case numbers continue their steady rise.

Early Friday afternoon, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in New York state stood at 7,845, according to the most recent data from the city and state. There were 5,151 confirmed cases in the city, de Blasio said.

Of the cases in the city, 1,518 were in Brooklyn, 1,406 in Queens, 1,314 in Manhattan, 667 in the Bronx, and 242 in Staten Island.

The state performed 10,000 tests overnight, bringing the total number of people tested in the state to 32,427, officials said. Around 1,250 people were hospitalized, a hospitalization rate of 18%, the governor said.

Cuomo said New York was now testing more people per capita than China or South Korea.

As testing has ramped up rapidly in the state and the virus spreads, confirmed cases have grown at a breathtaking pace: When the week began, there were only about 700 cases in the state. Now there are about 10 times that.

In New Jersey, the governor’s office said Thursday that another 318 people had tested positive, bringing the state’s total to 742. Nine people had died in New Jersey, up from five Wednesday. Three of the nine deaths were associated with long-term health care facilities, which have been closed to visitors, the state’s health commissioner said.

In Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont said Thursday that the state had recorded its third coronavirus-related death and had added 63 confirmed virus cases since Wednesday, bringing its total to 159.

De Blasio blamed Trump for the looming shortages of medical supplies.

De Blasio said that New York City’s need for medical supplies, including face masks, gloves and ventilators, was growing more urgent, and he criticized President Donald Trump for not activating the military to ensure necessary supplies be delivered to places fighting the outbreak.

“He should get the hell out of the way and let the military do its job,” the mayor said.

On WNYC radio, de Blasio continued his criticism: “We’re talking about, ironically, a New Yorker in the White House who is betraying New York City,” he told Brian Lehrer.

“We’re talking about a president who is basically doing what Herbert Hoover did at the beginning of the Depression and minimizing the nature and refusing to use available federal action, and people are going to die, and they shouldn’t, they don’t have to, if we could get the support that we’re asking for.”

The medical needs include 3 million N95 masks, 50 million surgical masks and 15,000 ventilators. Health care workers will need another 45 million of each of the following: surgical gowns, coveralls, gloves, regular face masks and face shields, the mayor said.

De Blasio said on CNN on Friday morning that the Javits Center and other large facilities like hotels might be used in the response to the coronavirus, possibly as hospital annexes.

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Crowds throng a new test center in Queens.

Early Friday, about 100 people lined up for coronavirus tests outside the emergency room at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, one of several public hospitals that the city Health Department said Thursday would begin testing people for the virus by appointment only.

The other public hospitals offering tests as of Friday included Bellevue, Harlem, Metropolitan, Kings County, Lincoln, Woodhull and Queens, officials said. Test centers are expected to open at Coney Island and Jacobi hospitals early next week. The city also plans to open several drive-thru test sites at its hospitals.

Officials said they expected to test 150 people a day at each of the centers, which were created to ensure that New Yorkers with moderate to severe symptoms had access to tests without going to emergency rooms.

Those who have mild symptoms, are not over 50 or do not have underlying health conditions should continue to stay home, practice social distancing and consult their health care providers if their symptoms do not subside in three to four days.

The control tower at Kennedy Airport was closed after a worker tested positive.

The air traffic control tower at Kennedy International Airport, one of the busiest airports in the country, was temporarily closed after a worker there tested positive for the coronavirus, the Federal Aviation Agency said in a statement.

The airport remained open Friday, but the FAA closed the tower as a precaution and called a professional cleaning company to sanitize the facility, it said.

Air traffic controllers were operating from an alternate location at the airport, as part of a contingency plan that the agency has had in place since well before the outbreak began.

The worker, a technician, did not enter the part of the tower where air traffic controllers work, the agency said. He was last at the facility Monday, when he was only in the building for “a brief visit.”

Earlier this week, a tower at Las Vegas McCarran International Airport was temporarily closed after an air traffic controller tested positive for the virus.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .