NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday said he would extend New York state's moratorium on a subset of COVID-19-related residential evictions into the new year amid a continued surge in cases.
At a news briefing Wednesday morning, Cuomo said he planned to extend the state's Tenant Safe Harbor Act, which is set to expire on Jan. 1, without immediately providing details.
"It's still in place… through Sunday, so obviously we update these things as we go, and we're not going to let anybody who's evicted due to these circumstances be evicted," Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa said at his briefing.
"We continue to extend this, as well as the commercial rent eviction moratorium," she added.
The Tenant Safe Harbor Act is not a blanket moratorium, but does protect residential tenants "whose [eviction] cases began after March 7 for the duration of the pandemic," LoHud reported.
An executive order Cuomo signed at the end of September, meanwhile, extended "the same protections through Jan. 1 for tenants with cases that began before then," according to the outlet.
Housing advocates and others have argued that the protections are "a patchwork that leaves renters in a precarious situation, even after the virus is brought under control," the outlet noted.
Cuomo on Wednesday also reported 164 new COVID-19-related fatalities.
Of the 204,361 COVID-19 test results that came back on Tuesday, 11,937, or 5.84 percent, were positive, he said.
As of Tuesday, 6,864 New Yorkers were hospitalized with COVID-19, up from 6,661 on Monday.
