NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- New York City schools will close starting Thursday — and will stay closed "through Thanksgiving" — after the city reached a 3% rolling COVID positivity rate, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
"New York City has reached the 3% testing positivity 7-day average threshold. Unfortunately, this means public school buildings will be closed as of tomorrow, Thursday Nov. 19, out an abundance of caution," de Blasio tweeted Wednesday.
At an afternoon news briefing, de Blasio said they would remain closed during Thanksgiving week.
“We gave people a warning to think about it for the remainder of this month, so certainly through Thanksgiving school will be closed," he said. "We're going to see with the state how quickly we can finalize those standards and what we have to do to meet those standards."
The mayor delayed his daily briefing, scheduled for 10 a.m., more than four hours before the decision was announced shortly after 2:15 p.m.
“This morning we had bad news. We spent some time confirming it and double checking it, because it is exactly on the number of 3.00%” de Blasio said. “As a result, we do need to close our schools for the coming days. No one is happy about this decision. We all, in fact, are feeling very sad about this decision, because so much good work has been put into keeping the schools open.”
The move means in-person learning will be temporarily paused and students will switch to all-remote learning in the nation's largest school system.
Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza said public school buildings would remain closed "until further notice."
"Health and safety have always been our first priority for @NYCSchools students, staff, and families. To protect our school communities and our city, beginning tomorrow, all @NYCSchools buildings will be closed, and all learning will proceed remotely, until further notice," Carranza tweeted.
De Blasio has repeatedly vowed to pause in-person learning if the city crossed the 3% threshold. Wednesday's positivity rate was up from 2.74% on Tuesday.
“We set a very clear standard and we need to stick with that standard,” the mayor said. “And I want to emphasize to parents, to educators, to staff, to kids that we intend to come back and come back as quickly as possible.”
De Blasio said the city is working with the state and Gov. Andrew Cuomo "on exactly what it would take to come back and bring our schools back quickly."
"It will be a higher standard, and I want that to be clear," the mayor said. "We have a stringent health and safety standard right now and we're going to have to raise that up even higher to be able to bring our schools back, but that's exactly what we intend to do."
De Blasio said testing "is going to be crucial to the successful reopening of our schools." He said any plan to reopen would focus on testing and he urged “everyone in the school community” to be prepared for a “deeper testing regime.”