ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Shuttered sectors of New York’s economy will begin inching back to life Friday with more construction, manufacturing and curbside retail pickups allowed in parts of the state that are hours away from pandemic-stricken New York City.
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The smaller cities and rural regions of upstate New York have been spared the brunt of the coronavirus outbreak. Gov. Andrew Cuomo is allowing many of those areas to gradually reopen first, industry by industry.
The first wave of businesses includes retail — though only for curbside or in-store pickup — along with construction and manufacturing.
In the largely rural Mohawk Valley, DANVANN Construction & Development is set to begin an excavation job Monday at a lake on the southern edge of the huge Adirondack Park.
“I’ve been lounging around the house a lot, and I’m ready to get busy,” said employee Justin Brown. “I’d rather be working.”
Job site rules will be different next week, with workers keeping their hands disinfected and their faces covered, said company owner Dan Roth, who has been paying his four idled employees.
They’ll also “have to stay 6 feet away from each other as best as you possibly can,” he said.
Cuomo’s administration divided the state into 10 regions that will reopen on different timetables. Restrictions can’t be eased until a region meets seven benchmarks demonstrating that COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations are down and that there are enough hospital beds if the outbreak flares up again. Each region must have a program of testing and contact tracing.
The five regions of New York poised to open Friday cover a wide strip down the middle of the state. Excluded are New York City, Long Island and the Hudson Valley on the state’s east side, and the Buffalo region to the west.
It might resemble a soft opening.
A lot of manufacturing, construction and retail deemed essential has continued in New York during the lockdown. And curbside retail pickup has been available for food, wine and some other retail goods.
In Rochester, Tanvi Asher has been filling orders online for her Shop Peppermint and Salty Boutique clothing stores. She already has signs telling customers to stay in their cars while a worker brings packages to them.
She will be open for curbside pickup Friday. But business is only about 25% of what it was before the pandemic, and she doesn’t expect a rebound until customers can browse the racks.
“Sadly, the truth is if I don’t open, we will close forever,” she said. “So, at some point we’re going to have to open.”
If new COVID-19 cases remain under control during the initial reopening, regions can open more types of businesses in a couple of weeks. The next phase will include office jobs like professional services and insurance, as well as retail. Restaurants are included in the phase after that, and then finally arts, entertainment, recreation and education.
Along with the regional reopenings, Cuomo is relaxing other restrictions statewide. Warm weather gardening and landscaping businesses got permission to restart, as did drive-in theaters.
The Four Brothers Drive-In Theater near the Connecticut border opens for the season Friday evening with “Trolls World Tour” and “Birds of Prey” showing on the big outdoor screen.
Drive-ins, a nostalgic niche business before the pandemic, are suddenly an outlet for cooped-up families to watch movies safely from their cars.
“Our only concern is making sure we can control the crowd. And we actually hired some police to come in and direct traffic,” said John Stefanopoulos, whose family runs the business 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of New York City.
Businesses in the regions slated for reopening must come up with a plan outlining how they will prevent the spread of COVID-19, with requirements for providing face coverings and “social distancing markers” in common areas.
Dandelion Energy, which installs geothermal energy systems, already has plans to stagger workers coming into its Peekskill warehouse and have crews drive in separate vehicles to installation sites.
The company has a backlog of 180 jobs it can start tackling next week, at least in the Mohawk Valley, which is poised to reopen, according to CEO Michael Sachse.
Dandelion has about 60 people on furlough and 20 active workers. Sachse said he hopes to be up to 60 active workers in June.
“The risk for us is in starting and stopping again,” Sachse said. “Our hope is that it’s just a gradual and steady ramp back up to business as normal. But realistically, it may not look that way.”
First it was about “flattening the curve” of new cases, to avoid overwhelming the medical facilities.
We reached the height of that curve by the last week of April. The temporary hospitals and ships have all packed up and gone home.
What exactly is it about now? If the goal is to make the world “safe” from Covid-19, than the lock-downs shall continue indefinitely until either the US treasury runs out of ink or paper, and/or there is a total collapse of the system.
These lock-downs and stay-at-home orders are not about making us “safe” at all.
If they were about making us all “safe”, than what exactly is supposed to change in one month, two, or three months that we suddenly transition to “safe”?
A world that it is “safe” and all are “protected” does not and cannot exist.
How will we all be able to go back to work in August but for some reason we cannot in June? Why is it ok to go to Walmart, but not the library or park? Is Covid smart enough to avoid Costco but lurks in the cleaners?
So if you can go to a supermarket “safely” than you should be able to go anywhere you want – in a free society.
Governors, Mayors and local officials extend lock-downs at their whims. Woe to anyone who tries to defy them.
The Governor of Michigan summarily suspended Barber Karl Manke’s license, because he refused to submit to her will. Dallas Texas Judge Eric Moye jailed hair salon owner because she refused to apologize for “being selfish” after opening her salon in defiance of local ordinance. People are arrested for going to the beaches in CA and FL.
Notice how all the pundits and politicians advocating the position of lock-downs and death rates and fear and terror; they all have jobs, and do not fear for their futures. From Fauci and Birx, to Pelosi and Cuomo, the Governors and Mayors and the Doctors and nurses and on and on. Not one of the people telling you to stay home, is worried about how they will pay the rent of put food on the table. Without exception. Why is that? If you have a paycheck you care about human life, but if you are worried about feeding your children you are selfish and homicidally reckless?
We have gone from a free society as a Federal Democracy to a police state in a matter of weeks and barely anyone protests.
Rates of infection will increase when we “open up” no matter what we do. These microbes cannot be avoided no matter what we do. Thankfully, the vast majority of us do well with this terrible virus. Horribly, it kills some. Like is fraught with risk and danger and the government is not our mother. If you are too worried to go out, than by all means stay home. But do not impose your fears on the rest of society.
Many people need to and want to go to work. Now. Not in July. Not in August. Now. No stimulus. No CARES. No PPP. Just let us work.
Thirty four million unemployed and counting. Nearly half of all workers who earn $40,000/year are out of work. Many of those jobs will simply not be there when we reopen.
Meanwhile, the US Treasury is hemorrhaging your money at a rate never seen before in world history while mortgaging our future and the future of our children and grandchildren. In all this politicians like the Mayor of NYC has the gall to tantrum to President Trump that without federal funds for his city “there will be no recovery” and Democrats try to stuff the stimulus bills down our throats, loaded with insane giveaways and Progressive wish-list items like diversity requirements, gender equity, union bargaining power and on and on.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive” – CS Lewis