Westchester Closing In On Reopening Benchmarks

WHITE PLAINS, NY — While Westchester County is tied regionally to Orange, Rockland, Putnam, Sullivan and Dutchess counties in terms of state-mandated metrics for reopening society, it is making progress on hitting the required benchmarks, County Executive George Latimer said during his daily news conference Monday.

"The perception that since we are the largest county in the region that we are the problem" is not accurate, he said.

Latimer said the county has met criteria for testing and hospital and ICU capacity.

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However, keeping new hospitalizations to under 20 county residents per day as well as a 14-day declines in hospitalizations and deaths are still being sought.

Latimer said the county is working on putting together the required number of contract tracers, which is 30 per 100,000, or 300 for the county.

"I think we are fairly close to meeting them," he said of the remaining criteria.

On the 14-day declines, Latimer said he thinks the county is in good shape.

"I would like to think by the end of the week we will show significant progress," he said.

Once the region is given the go-ahead to begin opening, the first phase will allow construction, manufacturing and wholesale supply chain, retail — curbside pickup and agriculture forestry and fishing.

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