As New York enters a new phase of reopening with coronavirus cases decreasing throughout the state, Gov. Andrew Cuomo told NBC’s "Today" on Tuesday he is “seriously considering” imposing a quarantine on visitors to New York who arrive from outside the state as the number of cases increases elsewhere.
“You have about half the states in this country you're seeing the virus going up, New York we have the virus going down,” Cuomo said, adding that “we don’t want [visitors] bringing the virus here, so we’re seriously considering a quarantine just to make sure that people who come in from states with higher infections don't inadvertently increase our infection rate.”
Cuomo defended New York’s reopening plan, which was slower than in many other states.
“We went through what the other states are going through, and we did have a science-based reopening,” Cuomo said. “We did it on the facts, we did control it, we did moderate it and that's what works. The states that reopened with abandon, they now have tremendous infection rates.”
He also said it was, unfortunately, necessary to keep many businesses shut down longer than they were elsewhere.
“Look at the facts, look around the country, everything says we did it right and we did it smart,” Cuomo said. “Look, nobody wanted to close, no business person wanted to close, no employee wanted to stay home, but there was no alternative. And those states that had this blind ‘OK let’s do whatever we want to do and we’ll reopen immediately,’ they have serious problems now.”
After new coronavirus cases leveled off nationally at about 20,000 a day for weeks, it increased to some 30,000 daily over the weekend, according to The Hill.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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