Long Island Hits Another Benchmark For Reopening After Pandemic

LONG ISLAND, NY — Long Island moved closer on Sunday to reopening now that the coronavirus outbreak is subsiding. New York state requires regions to have a new hospitalization rate under 2 per 100,000 residents to begin phase one of the reopening plan. Long Island posted a rate of 1.97 per 100,000 as of May 16, the state dashboard reported Sunday afternoon.

Every region must hit seven benchmarks. Half the state reopened Friday, but Long Island, the Hudson Valley, New York City, the Capital District and western New York have still not met all the region-by-region criteria put in place.

Now that Long Island has met five of the state's seven benchmarks, two are still to go:

• Metric No. 2—Decline in Deaths. Region must show a sustained decline in the three-day rolling average of daily hospital deaths over the course of a 14-day period. Alternatively, regions can satisfy this metric if the three-day rolling average of daily new hospital deaths does not exceed 5. The first number in this cell represents the number of consecutive days of decline in the three-day rolling average of daily hospital deaths; if this number is 14 or greater the region automatically satisfies this metric. The second number represents maximum daily increase in the three-day rolling average of new hospital deaths; if this number is 5 or less the region automatically satisfies this metric. Long Island's score is 4/15.
• Metric No. 7—Contact Tracing Capacity. Number of contact tracers in each region must meet thresholds set by the Department of Health, in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health and Vital Strategies. Long Island is expected to meet this metric.

Here's what the trend in COVID-19 hospitalizations May 1-15 looked like for Long Island (the peak, on April 11, was 4,108 total hospitalizations.)

Cuomo said at the Sunday briefing that the Capital District and western New York will start reopening shortly, as the only thing left is hiring and training enough tracers, something he deemed "purely an administrative function."

Phase 1 of reopening includes construction; manufacturing and wholesale supply chain; retail for curbside pickup and drop-off or in-store pickup; and agriculture, forestry and fishing.