Suffolk Moves Closer to Targets to Reopen Economy
If the trend continues through Monday, Suffolk County will be within the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines for reopening the economy.
Additionally, the county’s hospitalization rate is also around Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) targeted 70 percent or lower goal, creating health care flexibility in the event of an increase in the incidence of COVID-19.
With Cuomo’s New York Pause set to end on May 15, County Executive Steve Bellone (D) said he would continue to discuss ways to restart part of the local economy.
“We are looking at a number of different guideposts for how we reopen and when it makes sense to reopen,” Bellone said on his daily conference call with reporters.
Bellone hopes to have contract tracing and sufficient testing in place to reopen the economy in a safe way. Another target is to keep the rate of transmission per infected individual below one.
“If that gets to 1.1, we are looking at this virus spreading once again,” Bellone said. A worst case scenario would be if the government reopened the economy and then needed to reinstate restrictions, which would cause emotional, psychological and economic devastation, the county executive said.
Bellone indicated that a summer working group, led by Deputy County Executive Jon Kaiman, would likely have guidelines as early as next week for beaches, pools and other facilities.
The summer is “going to be different,” Bellone said. “It’s not back to where we were.”
The number of people infected over the last day continued to rise, climbing 661 to 34,079.
The number of residents in Suffolk County hospitals fell by 35 to 1,047, while the number of people in the Intensive Care Unit also declined 35, to 369.
With hospitals at 74 percent capacity and ICU beds at 69 percent, the county is “right around the numbers where the state says you need to be to reopen the economy in a safe way,” Bellone said.
The number of people who left the hospital rose by 111.
The death rate from complications related to coronavirus continued to climb, as 24 people died over the last day, bringing the total deaths to 1,155.
Separately, Bellone, U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY-1) and former National Football League player Gary Brown will host a discussion for veterans tomorrow night at 5:30 p.m. People who would like to listen to the town hall can tune in on facebook live, at facebook.com/SteveBellone.
Bellone said his office has now distributed over 3 million pieces of personal protective equipment. He thanked federal and state governments for their delivery of supplies, which included 600,000 ear loop masks, 843,000 gloves and 42,000 face shields over the last day.
The county executive highlighted the recent donation of 50,000 surgical masks by the Greater New York Automobile Dealer’s Association, which is a part of the association’s effort to distribute half a million surgical masks to counties in the downstate area.
In the Suffolk County Police Department, 86 officers have tested positive and 72 have returned to work.
