New York statewide closure amid pandemic to end on May 15

NEW YORK - The US state of New York will end its statewide closure on May 15 by reopening three regions where the COVID-19 pandemic has shown signs of mitigation, Governor Andrew Cuomo said Monday.

Cuomo said three regions in the northern part of the state -- the Southern Tier, Mohawk Valley, and the Finger Lakes -- have met the criteria for reopening and will enter the first of four reopening phases.

Some low-risk businesses including landscaping and gardening, as well as recreational activities such as tennis can also resume across the state on May 15, said the governor.

"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," said Cuomo at his daily briefing.

The seven metrics for determining whether a region could reopen include decline in total hospitalizations, decline in deaths, new hospitalizations, hospital bed capacity, ICU bed capacity, diagnostic testing capacity and contact tracing capacity.

Industries including construction, manufacturing, wholesale supply chain, agriculture, forestry and fishing could restart operating during the first phase, and a two-week monitoring period is required before entering the next phase, Cuomo said.

If a region sees a failure in meeting all the seven metrics, the reopening effort would be paused until those metrics are met again, he said.

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday that the city's non-essential businesses will not reopen before June "unless something miraculous happens."

He said at his own briefing that the city, which has reported over 185,000 COVID-19 cases, is "clearly not ready yet," while "by June we will make progress if we keep up what we have been doing."

By Monday, New York state has reported as many as 93 cases of children with a rare inflammatory syndrome likely linked to COVID-19, said Cuomo.

He said at least three children have died, while two more fatalities are under investigation.

According to Cuomo, the syndrome has features that resemble those of Kawasaki Disease or Toxic Shock Syndrome. Most of the kids have tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies or novel coronavirus, though the connection between the disease and the virus is not yet determined.

This new condition has been reported from across the country during the past week, and the state's health department is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop national criteria to help health experts in other 49 states to identify and respond to the disease.

So far, a total of 337,055 COVID-19 cases have been reported in New York state, accounting for 25 percent of the national total, as Johns Hopkins University's data showed.