Governor Andrew M. Cuomo late Friday updated an executive order so that it now permits gatherings of up to 10 people.
At a briefing held earlier in the day in New York City, he also announced new small business loans and said that staging operations may begin in the Long Island region for construction projects in anticipation of the start of phase one of the state’s re-opening plan here.
As initially announced, the update relating to gatherings was to apply only to religious gatherings and certain Memorial Day activities, but it was modified “to permit any non-essential gathering of ten or fewer individuals, for any lawful purpose or reason, provided that social distancing protocols and cleaning and disinfection protocols required by the Department of Health are adhered to.”
The update was posted around 7:30PM. It amends the governor’s executive order issued March 7 declaring a state of emergency for all of New York, which was since been extended through June 21.
NYS new small business loans
The governor also launched a $100 million fund to provide flexible and affordable loans to help small businesses. The loans will be focused on minority- and women-owned businesses that did not receive federal COVID-19 assistance.
The loans are restricted to businesses with 20 or fewer employees and less than $3 million in gross revenues. Businesses interested in receiving a loan should visit esd.ny.gov/nyforwardloans.
Contact tracing
The state is making its contact tracing training curriculum available at no cost to all states through the National Governors Association to speed the process of creating contact tracing programs, the governor said. The state partnered with Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University to develop the online curriculum to train potential contact tracers.
According to the state’s re-opening plan, each region must have a sufficient number of contact tracers in place to manage anticipated caseload based on population. The Long Island region has not yet cleared this metric, one of seven required before entering phase one of reopening.
The number of contact tracers required in the Long Island region was recently increased from 450 to 1,800, according to Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, who spoke at a Shelter Island’s weekly emergency update.
New York State has hired Public Consulting Group (PCG) to hire contact tracers. You can find information about these jobs on the PCG website. Fleming said county and municipal workers may also be recruited to perform these duties as volunteers.
Contact tracing is currently underway in seven regions of the state – the Capital Region, Central New York, Finger Lakes, the Mohawk Valley, the North Country, the Southern Tier and Western New York.
Other news
Governor Cuomo also announced the Long Island and Mid-Hudson Valley Regions will be permitted to begin construction staging in anticipation of phase one, which permits construction and manufacturing to resume.
Both regions meet five out of seven metrics, and are expected to meet the contact tracing metric soon. Neither region has not yet met the metric for decline in hospital deaths (14 days based on a 3-day rolling average), but they’re both expected to do so soon.
Follow this link to see the Regional Monitoring Dashboard for more details about these metrics.
The governor also announced the launch of a new pilot program with 52 independent pharmacies to conduct 7,000 tests per week. New York State now has more than 750 testing sites across the state.
Visit coronavirus.health.ny.gov to find a nearby testing site and learn how to get tested.
