In his briefing today, the Governor gave more information regarding the Un-PAUSE plan for New York. It looks as though New York will start to slowly begin to Un-PAUSE on a regional basis beginning on May 15 in phases. Any plan to Un-PAUSE will be reversed if the hospitals in a region hit 70% capacity (or ICU beds hit 70% capacity) or the rate of transmission of outbreak crosses an established contamination vector.
Assuming these threshold guidelines are met, phase 1 of Un-PAUSE will start for manufacturing and construction businesses. For a region to begin phase 1, they must also establish a regional control room that will monitor all the information and hit the danger button if the hospitals reach capacity or the rate of transmission increases, and establish a regional isolation facility that will house individuals who test positive and cannot return home without infecting others.
The phase 1 businesses that are allowed to reopen must have a plan for PPE, monitoring, and social distancing. Businesses will make their own decisions in these areas but must follow state and federal guidelines and have a plan in place to protect their workers and the public.
Two weeks after phase 1, assuming the numbers continue to decline, and we don’t see a spike in infections, we would enter phase 2. Phase 2 businesses need to be identified, but this phase will not include “attractive nuances.” These are being defined as businesses/activities that will draw crowds/interest from other regions.
The Governor also announced that he would be making an announcement regarding schools and any re-opening plan for them by the end of the week.
For your information, we also wanted to pass along that the board of elections voted yesterday to cancel the Democratic Presidential Primary in New York since there was no longer a contested race for the nomination. As you’ll recall, today was the day the Democratic Presidential Primary was supposed to take place, but it was moved to June 23 as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. With this move by the board of elections, there will no longer be a vote for this race on June 23.
We will send more information as we get it. We will certainly pass along more detail and information on the Un-PAUSE plan as it becomes available.