May 11, 2020
ALBANY, NY – Today, Governor Andrew Cuomo listed the regions that go into Phase One of the re-opening process, on May 15th. He included the Southern Tier Region – this is important because Steuben County is a part of the Southern Tier region.
Phase One includes manufacturing, construction and wholesale supply…as well as retail for curbside pickup and drop off in-store, and also, farming, forestry and fishing. The governor also added that this will only happen, if things continue as they are. However, Allegany County was not mentioned as being able to go into Phase One, on May 15th.
See full statement below:
Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that as of today, the Finger Lakes, Southern Tier and Mohawk Valley Regions have met all seven metrics required to begin phase one of the state’s regional phased reopening plan when NYS on PAUSE orders expire on May 15th. If the trend continues, starting on May 15th, these three regions can begin opening businesses for phase one, which includes construction; manufacturing and wholesale supply chain; retail for curbside pickup and drop-off or in-store pickup; and agriculture, forestry and fishing. The North Country and Central NY regions have met 6 of the 7 metrics and could be ready at the end of the week. A guide to the state’s “NY Forward Reopening” Plan is available here. The Governor also launched the state’s regional monitoring dashboard, which is available here.
The Governor also announced that certain low-risk business and recreational activities will be ready to reopen statewide on May 15th, including landscaping and gardening; outdoor, low-risk recreational activities such as tennis; and drive-in movie theaters.
“We are starting a new chapter in the fight against this virus – we’ve worked together as a state to flatten the curve and the decline has finally reached a point where it is just about where we started this journey, so now we can turn to reopening,” Governor Cuomo said. “As we approach May 15, we have put regional control rooms in place, which are made up of the top government officials and academic and healthcare professionals in that region, to watch the situation in each region develop and increase or decrease the activity and speed of reopening based on the metrics and guidelines. These control rooms are critical because we just made it over the mountain and nobody wants to go back to the other side now.”
Governor Cuomo also announced the members of the regional control rooms that will monitor regional metrics during the reopening process. These regional control rooms will monitor the hospitalization rate, death rate, number of new hospitalizations, hospital bed capacity, ICU bed capacity, testing and contact tracing within its region during reopening and alert the state if the region’s metrics no longer meet the reopening guidelines and adjust the reopening plan for that region accordingly.
