Albany, N.Y. (WBEN) - "We expect Western New York to go to phase two tomorrow". New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, in his daily briefing on coronavirus, provided a hopeful update for thousands of regional local businesses that have been closed since March and anxious to get their businesses back on track.
"We'll have a final announcement later this afternoon for Western New York", said Cuomo. "The conversations I've had with them are all good."
“You turn on the TV and you see these mass gatherings that could potentially be infecting hundreds and hundreds of people after everything that we have done,” Cuomo said at his daily briefing. “We have to take a minute and ask ourselves: ’What are we doing here?”
The Democratic governor said he agreed with demonstrators fighting racism and societal inequality. But he sounded frustrated about possibly compromising more than two months of social and economic sacrifices. New York City is set to begin phasing in economic activity June 8.
“It took us 93 days to get here. Is this smart?" he asked.
Although many demonstrators are young, they could be spreading the virus to their mothers, fathers and grandparents, Cuomo said.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio expressed similar concerns at a separate briefing, saying: “For those who have made their presence felt, made their voices heard, the safest thing from this point is to stay home, obviously.”
Statewide hospitalization rates have been ticking down for weeks and the daily death toll has gone from almost 800 in early April to 54 on Sunday.