News Flash

The NY PAUSE order is still in effect and there has been a lot of news lately about how the State and region will begin to "re-open". It’s important to note that New York State is broken down into ten regions, and Westchester County is part of New York State’s Mid-Hudson Region.

For the Mid-Hudson Region to begin the reopening process, the entire region will collectively need to reach a set of metrics set forth by New York State. As of today, the Mid-Hudson region has met five of the seven metrics needed to reopen. To see how the Mid-Hudson Region is doing, you can go to the regional monitoring dashboard: https://forward.ny.gov/regional-monitoring-dashboard

Following are the required metrics:

1. Regions must have at least a 14-day decline in hospitalizations or under 15 new hospitalizations (3-day average) 
2. Regions must have at least at least a 14-day decline in hospitalized deaths or under 5 new deaths (3-day average) 
3. Regions must have under 2 new hospitalizations per 100,000 residents (3-day rolling average) 
4. Regions must have a certain share of total beds available (have at least 30 percent of available beds in case of potential resurgence) 
5. Regions must have a share of ICU beds available (have at least 30 percent of available ICU beds in case of potential resurgence) 
6. Each region must have the capacity to test 30 per 1,000 residents monthly (7-day average of new tests per day) 
7. Regions must have a baseline of 30 contact tracers for every 100,000 residents, and additional tracers based on the projected number of cases in the region 

Once the metrics are met, re-opening will occur in phases, with each phase to proceed for two weeks before the next phase begins.

Following are the four phases (details about business activities):

• Phase 1- Construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, select retail for curbside pickup only and agriculture, forestry and fishing. 
• Phase 2- Professional services, finance and insurance, retail, administrative support and real estate, rental and leasing. 
• Phase 3- Restaurants and food services. 
• Phase 4- Arts, entertainment, recreation and education. 

The other important component of re-opening is for businesses to have a plan to protect their employees and customers. As noted in NY Forward- A Guide to Reopening New York & Building Back Better, “Each business and industry must have a plan to protect employees and consumers, make the physical work space safer and implement processes that lower risk of infection in the business. In developing these plans, businesses will need to consider three main factors. The first factor is protections for employees and customers. These include possible adjustments to workplace hours and shift design as necessary to reduce density in the workplace; enacting social distancing protocols, and restricting non-essential travel for employees. The second is changes to the physical workspace, including requiring all employees and customers to wear masks if in frequent close contact with others and implementing strict cleaning and sanitation standards. The last factor for businesses to consider is implementing processes that meet our changing public health obligations, like screening individuals when they enter the workplace, or reporting confirmed positives to customers. While these processes will vary from business to business, almost everyone will have to adapt, in some way or another, to our new normal.”

The NY Forward guide is available on line at https://forward.ny.gov/