In-Person NYC School Classrooms Will Remain Open Wednesday: Mayor

NEW YORK CITY — New York City’s public schools will yet again narrowly avoid mass closures triggered by a rising coronavirus rate.

Schools will remain open Wednesday because the city’s average COVID-19 positivity rate held at 2.74 percent, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday.

That seven-day average falls below a 3 percent threshold for closing public schools citywide — a mark the city has nearly, but not quite reached for several days running.

“Another day where we’ve stayed below that threshold because of everything that you have done,” de Blasio said, directing his comments at New Yorkers.

De Blasio during his daily briefing emphasized that New Yorkers’ efforts have so far kept the city’s schools opened. He said the city conducted 300,000 COVID-19 tests last week and encouraged city dwellers to continue to get tested so officials can get an ever-better handle on where the virus stands in the city.

The city is expanding a testing blitz with new mobile testing units retrofitted from ice cream trucks parked outside of NYCHA homes in Brooklyn, as well rapid testing locations in Queens and Staten Island, said Ted Long, the city’s Test + Trace director.

“Every time you go out and get tested you’re doing your part to stop the spread of the virus,” Long said.

Students, parents and teachers have been in a days long waiting game to see if the city’s average positivity rate reaches 3 percent or more. Tests from within schools themselves have shown a much lower rate — 0.19 percent, according to the Department of Education — than the city as a whole.

Schools’ apparent safety prompted many, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to call on the city to rethink its 3 percent closure trigger. De Blasio, for his part, held strong that the city will hold to that mark — but on Tuesday he appeared open to reevaluating the threshold.

The city is talking to school unions, parents and state officials, he said.

“We’re talking through the right way to handle this,” he said.