NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Mayor Bill de Blasio said New York City schools will close starting Thursday after the city reached a 3% rolling COVID positivity rate.
"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.
The mayor had delayed his daily briefing—scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday—more than four hours before the decision was announced shortly after 2:15 p.m.
The move means in-person learning will be temporarily paused and students will switch to all-remote learning on Thursday. It's unclear how long the closure of school buildings will last.
The positivity rate had been 2.74% on Tuesday. De Blasio has vowed to pause in-person learning if the city crossed the 3% threshold but has also said he’d like to reopen schools as soon as possible.
“We set a standard, we asked everyone to trust it and believe in it, it's important to keep consistency with that,” the mayor said earlier this week.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo had suggested the city consider the positivity rate in schools—which is much lower—when deciding whether to pivot to all-remote learning, but de Blasio said the city would stick with the 3% threshold.
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