Andrew Cuomo says NYC will begin reopening process on June 8

Gov. Andrew Cuomo took charge of New York City’s reopening Friday, announcing that the Big Apple will finally begin to emerge from its months-long coronavirus lockdown in 10 days.

“We are on track to open June 8,” Cuomo said from La Penta School of Business in New Rochelle.

“Nobody reopened New York City in history. Nobody closed New York City in history,” Cuomo said as Mayor Bill de Blasio’s remote video connection to the joint press conference cut out.

“That will be my claim to fame,” Cuomo boasted.

Just hours earlier at his own City Hall coronavirus briefing de Blasio said he could not give a specific
date about when the city would reopen, beyond the first two weeks of June.

But Cuomo said the city’s restart is a little over a week away, while warning the Big Apple will look much different than it did before the pandemic hit in March.

“It is reopening to a new normal. It’s a safer normal. Reopening doesn’t’ mean going back to the past,” Cuomo said.

“People will be wearing masks. It’s just a new way of interacting, which we have to do,” he said.

On June 8, about 400,000 workers in the city’s construction, wholesale, manufacturing and curbside retail industries will return to their jobs as part of the state’s phase 1 reopening scheme, the governor added.
Cuomo said those workers would have to decide on their own how to get to their jobs.

“It’s up to you,” the governor said about transportation choices from mass transit to driving.

He added that trains are safe, without explaining how to prevent overcrowding.

“I don’t know if you can do strict social distancing on buses or subways…you have to wear a mask,” Cuomo
said.

The MTA put out a statement pushing back on guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control that encouraged workers to drive instead of taking mass transit.

“The CDC’s latest guidance marks yet another confounding recommendation from the nation’s top health authority. Encouraging people, especially those without cars and in congested areas like New York, not to take public transit is misguided.

“Our transit and bus system is cleaner and safer than it has been in history, as we clean and disinfect around the clock,” MTA Chairman Patrick Foye said in the statement.

State budget director Robert Mujica said the trains can easily manage the hundreds of thousands of people returning to work under phase 1.

During the few minutes he spoke at Cuomo’s briefing before his video feed short-circuited, de Blasio said the city would hand out 2 million free face coverings to city residents returning to work on June 8.