If New York’s coronavirus hospitalization rate does not stabilize soon, there will be tighter restrictions on indoor dining, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said Monday.
“If after 5 days a region’s hospital rate has not stabilized, indoor dining will close or be reduced. In NYC, indoor dining would close entirely,” the governor tweeted:
“In rest of the state, indoor dining would be reduced to 25% capacity,” he continued.
In a subsequent tweet, Cuomo said coronavirus hospitalizations are at 4,602, and “Of the 152,287 tests reported yesterday, 7,302 were positive (4.79% of total). Sadly, there were 80 fatalities”:
On November 30, the governor said his state was preparing to recruit retired doctors and nurses to staff hospitals dealing with the rise in coronavirus cases.
“I am very worried about staff shortages. I’m more concerned about the staff shortage than I am the [number of hospital] beds. We can build beds. We can’t create more staff. And the staff is starting tired,” he said.
During a briefing Monday, Cuomo, who has prohibited gatherings of ten or more people, said, “We estimate that 70 percent of the spread is coming from small gatherings, and that’s a problem.”
“We’re going to go through the holiday season. I think there’s going to be more small gatherings. I’ve been talking until I’m blue in the face about the apparent safety of being at home. The apparent safety of being with your family, that it can be misleading,” he continued.
The governor asked Dr. Anthony Fauci, who joined the meeting virtually, if limiting gatherings to ten was reasonable.
Fauci called the decision “sound,” adding that ten “may be a bit too much.”
Although some Twitter users agreed with Cuomo’s tweet about potential indoor dining restrictions, some did not.
“Please reduce your salary by 75% in solidarity,” one person replied.
“In other words in 5 days youre [sic] shutting down indoor dining bc masking up harder isnt [sic] working,” another user commented.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.