Sunday, 19 May 2024

New York City to Close Public Schools: Live Updates

All public and private schools in Nassau County, which includes some of the most densely populated areas of Long Island, will be closed starting Monday, Laura Curran, the county executive, announced Sunday.

In New Jersey, Gov. Philip D. Murphy said Sunday that a statewide school shutdown would be “imminent.”

Pressure to enact far more restrictions on New York City life.

Some elected officials raised growing alarms on Sunday that the city was moving far too slowly to place restrictions on public life.

They pointed out that bars and restaurants on Saturday night in many parts of the city were still relatively crowded, elevating the risk that the coronavirus would continue to spread rapidly.

City Council members, as well as Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, have begun calling on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio to order the closure of restaurants and bars.

“All nonessential services must be closed, including bars and restaurants,” Corey Johnson, the Council speaker, said in a statement. “We should keep essentials like grocery stores, bodegas, pharmacies, and banks open. And restaurants that can make deliveries should be able to stay open to provide delivery service for New Yorkers.”

Mr. Cuomo called on Sunday for private businesses to voluntarily close and have their employees work from home. He said he was considering mandatory closures.

In addition, Mr. Cuomo asked that all nonessential state employees who work in the southern part of the state — New York City, Long Island, and Rockland and Westchester Counties — to work from home. Members of the Legislature should return to work in Albany, he said, likening them to soldiers during a war.

“The government must function,” he said at a news conference on Sunday afternoon.

While he continued to call for social distancing and sounded the alarm about the lack of hospital space, the governor also urged people to remain calm.

Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Cuomo on Sunday did not rule out enacting more aggressive actions to restrict social interactions to try to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

“Every option is on the table,” Mr. de Blasio said on CNN, adding he would be coordinating any further restrictions with Mr. Cuomo. Right now, bars and restaurants can remain open if they operate at 50 percent of their maximum capacity.

No elected officials are calling for closing off the city by shutting down mass transit or roadways.

The officials have emphasized that mass transit must be running in order to ensure that the health care system continues to operate.

If the subway were shut down, health care workers would have difficulty reaching hospitals and other health care facilities.

In New Jersey, the mayor of Teaneck asked the city’s 41,000 residents to self-quarantine and not to leave their homes other than to buy food or pick up medicine. There are at least 18 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Teaneck.

Gov. Philip D. Murphy said on Sunday that a statewide curfew remains “under consideration” and that a statewide shutdown of schools “is imminent.” The New Jersey system serves 1.4 million public school students.

New Jersey had 98 confirmed coronavirus cases as of Sunday afternoon, an increase of 31 new cases from the day before. Two people in the state have died after testing positive for the virus.

Cuomo asks Trump for military to help fight the pandemic.

Governor Cuomo asked President Trump on Sunday to allow the Army Corps of Engineers to help states more quickly combat the spread of the coronavirus and expand the capacity of hospitals.

In an Op-Ed in The New York Times, Mr. Cuomo said that the Corps could “leverage its expertise, equipment and people power to retrofit and equip existing facilities — like military bases or college dormitories — to serve as temporary medical centers.”

If the worst projections become true, Mr. Cuomo said, New York State’s hospital system would not be able to handle the rush of patients, many of whom would require acute care. The state has only 3,186 intensive-care beds, he said.

Mr. Cuomo said on Sunday that the state will likely need thousands of additional intensive-care beds.

The number of confirmed cases in New York is now over 700.

As of Sunday, New York State had 729 confirmed coronavirus cases, officials said. Three people have died: an 82-year-old woman in Brooklyn on Friday; a 65-year-old man from Rockland County on Thursday; and a 79-year-old woman who died on Sunday in New York City.

The largest concentration of cases was in New York City, where 329 people have tested positive.

There were 196 confirmed cases in Westchester County, just north of New York City.

On Long Island, there were 98 confirmed cases in Nassau County and at least 47 in Suffolk County.

Just under 20 percent of the total cases in New York were of people who were hospitalized, Mr. Cuomo.

Mr. Cuomo said efforts in the city and state were still focused on tamping down the disease where they could. The state tested 700 people for the virus on Friday.

The governor expressed concerns about hospital capacity, particularly in intensive care. The state has approximately 3,000 I.C.U. beds, about 80 percent of which are already occupied, he said.

“That’s what this is all about,” the governor said. “How do you, can you, reduce the rate of spread to a level that your hospital system can manage?”

New York’s presidential primary could be delayed.

New York State’s presidential primary election could be moved from April 28 to June 23, the date of another scheduled statewide primary, in response to the coronavirus outbreak, officials said on Sunday.

Two other states — Louisiana and Georgia — have already postponed their primaries and other states are debating similar delays and alternatives, including mail-in balloting measures to avoid large crowds in public.

Douglas A. Kellner, co-chairman of the New York State Board of Elections, confirmed on Sunday that discussions were underway about the possibility of delaying the primary to curb the spread of the virus. But he said that no final decision had been reached.

College students deal with an early end to the semester.

Students at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., are dealing with the emotions and logistical hurdles of being told to return home because all in-person classes have been canceled for the rest of the semester.

Cornell was one of the first universities in the country to suspend classes on campus, and the college has given students a three-week break to make the journey home before online courses begin.

The news set off a range of emotions among students, especially seniors whose college careers will not end as they had imagined.

“I feel like a lot of experiences have been stolen from me,” Justin Welfeld, a senior, said.

The trip home is not easy for some students, particularly those who live overseas. But some students refused to leave, vowing to remain near campus even after dorms shut down later this month.

“I’m staying,” said Linden Wike, 22, a senior majoring in astronomy, who questioned the length of the pause on normal, in-person classes and the wisdom of sending people “to where it might be worse.”

Stacy Cowley, Anupreeta Das, Matthew Haag, Jesse McKinley, Eliza Shapiro and Tracey Tully contributed reporting.

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