NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday that beaches in New York City would not be reopen for Memorial Day despite beaches opening across the Tri-State for the start of the summer season.
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Several days ago, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said beaches and lakeshores would reopen in New York state, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware at 50 percent capacity. However, local governments are allowed to keep beaches closed if they think it's necessary.
"There's obviously a huge interest in the beaches. And the state of New York has said that different localities can make different choices. And some are deciding in the metropolitan area to open beaches for Memorial Day, the traditional start of the beach season," de Blasio said. "I've said it before and I'm going to say it again, we are not opening our beaches on Memorial Day. We are not opening our beaches in the near-term. It is not safe. It is not the right thing to do in the epicenter of this crisis."
De Blasio said he hasn't ruled out allowing beaches to reopen later in the summer if the city makes more progress in controlling the coronavirus, but he said normal beach activities "cannot happen anytime soon."
The mayor said the city will still train lifeguards in case circumstances change, but that for the time being the use of beaches is limited to local residents who want to walk along the sand.
"No swimming, no parties, no sports, no gatherings. We're going to give people a chance to get it right," de Blasio said.
"If we start to see people congregating, if we start to see people swimming, if we start to see people doing things that literally go against everything we've talked about in terms of health and safety, then we will take further measures," the mayor said.
De Blasio said the city plans to add fencing to further restrict access if social distancing is not observed in the weeks ahead.
"If we start to see a lot of violations of those rules, up will come those fences, closing up those beaches," the mayor said.
In the meantime, the Parks Department and NYPD will be increasing patrols to keep an eye on things.
At his daily briefing, de Blasio also announced a partnership between the city and CityMD to expand testing.
CityMD is opening 123 testing sites across all five boroughs to do 6,000 tests per day seven days a week. People can find locations at citymd.com.
De Blasio said the city's daily testing capacity has now reached 20,000, ahead of schedule.
The mayor also said 500 "tracers" who will be tracking coronavirus cases have completed their training. He said the city plans to have 1,000 tracers on the ground tracing cases by the end of May.
De Blasio said COVID-19 antibody testing is also available for 140,000 New York City residents. People can make an appointment by going to nyc.gov/antibodysurvey or calling (888) 279-0967.
The mayor also announced that the number of cases of an inflammatory condition affecting kids—pediatric muti-system inflammatory syndrome (PMIS)—had risen to 137 in the city. He said in 66 of those cases, the child tested positive for COVID-19 or antibodies. A 5-year-old boy died from the condition.
When it comes to metrics tracking the spread of the coronavirus, de Blasio said the city had a "good day, but still not a perfect day."
The daily number of people admitted to hospitals was unchanged at 77.
The number of people currently in public hospital ICUs with suspected COVID-19 was down to 469 from 506.
The percentage of people tested citywide who were positive for COVID-19 was down to 11 percent from 13 percent.
New data from the city health department shows there were 190,408 cases in the five boroughs on Sunday.
That's up 1,377 from the 189,031 cases reported Saturday.
The number of confirmed deaths Sunday was 15,888 and the number of "probable" deaths was 4,832.
There were 15,756 confirmed deaths and 4,820 probable deaths on Saturday.
The combined death toll citywide was up to 20,720 Sunday—an additional 144 deaths since 20,576 were reported Saturday.
A total of 50,120 people across the city have been hospitalized for COVID-19.
Here's the breakdown of cases by borough:
- The Bronx: 43,252 (23%)
- Brooklyn: 51,931 (27%)
- Manhattan: 23,620 (12%)
- Queens: 58,574 (31%)
- Staten Island: 12,937 (7%)
- Unknown: 94
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