Mayor de Blasio Warns NYC to Face Another Full Shutdown, Beyond Indoor Dining

By Yehudit Garmaise

   Mayor de Blasio Warns that New York City will soon face another full shutdown, in addition to the closure of indoor dining.

   “I think there is a likelihood of more restrictions to come quite soon,” Mayor Bill de Blasio warned after announcing that today’s number of positive coronavirus cases in New York City is very high: 2,137 positive cases.

   The mayor also said that the seven-day rolling average is still rising at 5.5%, and that hospital capacity are ever-decreasing. 

   The mayor explained that the city aims to get the number of positive COVID cases “to stay under 550, and that is going to take us a long time to get back there, but we will,” said the mayor, who also wants the get the city’s seven-day rolling average percentage “back under 5% and get it lower and lower all the time, and the vaccine is going to be leading the way.”

    The spike in coronavirus positivity necessitates the potential of having to do a full pause—a full shutdown in the coming weeks, explained the mayor, who said he is working carefully with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who will make the ultimate decision about future shutdowns.

    “We have to be preparing ourselves mentally and practically for the possibility of more restrictions quite soon,” the mayor said. “So, folks should start making those adjustments now.

    One step New Yorkers can take to participate in a necessary pause is to do as much work they can remotely for a couple of weeks, the mayor responded after a reporter asked him what he thought about the call for the closure of nonessential office space by Mark Levine, the chairman of the City Council Health Committee.

   “The governor’s quote in the New York Times said it exactly right, that ‘In the current rate we are going, we have to be ready for a full-shutdown, a pause like we had at the end of the spring, and that is increasingly necessary,'” said the mayor, who added that we have to stop COVID from taking lives and from threatening our hospitals.

     “We are going to have a tough December, a tough January, but today, we got amazingly good news: news to celebrate,” the mayor happily said, “which is that the first vaccines are finally being administered in New York City. The vaccine is the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.