Restaurants, bars and gyms in New York State must end indoor and outdoor service after 10 p.m. each day under a new curfew that will take effect Friday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced in a phone conference this afternoon.
Indoor gatherings in private homes will be limited to 10 people starting Friday, Cuomo said.
The new rules are in response to an alarming spike in COVID-19 cases statewide in recent days.
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Cases surged to almost 5,000 new positives today, an increase of nearly 1,000 from yesterday’s daily case count. The state’s positivity rate today was 2.93%.
Six days ago, New York State broke 3,000 new cases for the first time since early May, when the state was coming down from its first major outbreak in April.
With daily cases rising rapidly, Cuomo says he hopes these new restrictions will reduce the spread without the need for a full shutdown of non-essential business activity, as the state saw in March, April and May.
“The reason we have been successful in reducing the spread in New York is that we have been a step ahead of COVID,” Cuomo said. “You know where it’s going, you stop it before it gets there.
“This is the calibration that we’ve talked about,” he added.
Restaurants will still be able to provide curbside food pickup and delivery after the curfew, but they must close both indoor and outdoor service each night after 10 p.m.
Cuomo compared the new restrictions to “tightening the valve” on economic activity, a metaphor he used when reopening New York in early summer.
The state’s contact tracers have found restaurants, gyms and indoor gatherings to be the primary sources of new infections, Cuomo said.
Both Connecticut and New Jersey have also imposed curfews and restrictions on indoor gatherings as their infection rates have soared in the past two weeks.
“I don’t want people in Connecticut saying, ‘We can’t meet at my house, so we’ll go meet at your house in New York,’” Cuomo said. “We don’t want the traffic being steered here.”
Long Island has been one of the regions driving the state’s infection rate higher. Both Suffolk and Nassau counties reported positivity rates over 3% yesterday. Suffolk County’s positivity rate reached 3.8% on Monday.
County Executive Steve Bellone warned residents yesterday that Suffolk is seeing “large community spread at this point.”
“These measures are appropriate at this point in time, in anticipation of what we see as a potential spread,” Cuomo said. “If these measures are not sufficient to slow the spread, we will turn the valve more.”
Robert Gerety, vice president of the Suffolk County Restaurant and Tavern Association, called the new restrictions “very unfair.”
“He’s lumping us in with the hotspots in the city and other counties,” Gerety said. “This is going to cost people a lot of money. Many kitchens are open until midnight, some later.
“We’re just starting to get back on our feet,” Gerety added, “and this pulls the rug out from under us.”
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