New York City will set up checkpoints to enforce quarantine for travelers [via Politico]
New York City will set up checkpoints at entry points to the city to find travelers from states with high coronavirus infection rates and order them to quarantine for two weeks, officials said Wednesday.
The new checkpoints at bridges and tunnels will stop cars and seek to enforce quarantine orders imposed by New York State, which require people coming from 34 states and Puerto Rico to self isolate for up to 14 days to avoid spreading Covid-19.
The city Sheriff’s Office will run the checkpoints and stop a random sampling of cars entering the city, reminding drivers of the quarantine order and requiring them to fill out a registration form if they’re coming from a high risk state.
People caught violating the quarantine — which applies to both residents of the high-risk states and New Yorkers returning from visits — can be hit with fines up to $10,000.
One fifth of new Covid-19 cases are now coming from out-of-state travelers, said Ted Long, who heads the city’s contact tracing program.
Cuomo takes over governors group as virus batters states [via ABC News]
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to take the reins of the National Governors Association on Wednesday during a meeting held virtually because of the disease.
The association represents governors in all 50 states and territories and has emerged from the political shadows since the pandemic erupted in the U.S. The chairman who is handing off to Cuomo, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, has pushed the group to put bipartisan pressure on the Trump administration to provide personal protective gear, ventilators, testing kits and budget help to the states.
Cuomo said the NGA will focus on sharing survival and recovery tactics among its members, as well as creating systems to increase testing capacity, contract tracing, supply chains for medical equipment, emergency stockpiles and surge capacity in the months to come. The governors will continue to press the federal government for the authorization and funds to accomplish those goals, including the $500 billion the group has collectively requested in direct aid, he said, and will reimagine the infrastructure necessary to rebuild.
NYC Mayor Doesn't See Gyms, Indoor Dining and Malls Opening Before Labor Day 'as a reality' [via NBC NY]
Asked Wednesday when he thought indoor dining, gyms or malls might return in New York City, de Blasio said he doesn't see it as a reality before Labor Day. He is excruciatingly conscious of the need to protect New York City's COVID progress, given the depths from which it -- and the state -- had to crawl to get to today.
Statewide COVID hospitalizations fell to 564, down from a peak of 20,000 in April, while the daily test positivity rate remains at 1 percent over a seven-day rolling average. The five boroughs have that same low positivity rate, which is one of the lowest in the nation and a far cry from the 59 percent daily rates it saw in April.
De Blasio cites 'unity' in pushing out top doctor, but defends critical police commissioner [via Politico]
Mayor Bill de Blasio pushed out his health commissioner, Oxiris Barbot, after a series of private disagreements throughout the coronavirus pandemic, saying he needed an “atmosphere of unity.”
But the mayor offered another vote of confidence Wednesday in his police commissioner, Dermot Shea, who has publicly called a police reform law the mayor signed “insane,” labeled the budget de Blasio negotiated a “bow to mob rule,” and referred to city leaders as “cowards.”
When asked about the contrast, de Blasio said he required “communication” and “team work” from all of his agency heads, and does not believe Shea has violated those standards.
Trump says schools should reopen because children are 'virtually immune' [via USA Today]
President Donald Trump defended his call to reopen schools this fall by claiming children are "virtually immune" from COVID-19 and that the coronavirus will "go away" soon.
“This thing’s going away – It will go away like things go away," Trump said during a wide-ranging interview on "Fox & Friends" a day after authorities reported more than 1,000 Americans died of the virus.
Children can catch – and pass on – the coronavirus, doctors have said. The National Education Association has cited that in arguing that reopening schools this fall may maintain spikes in the spread of the virus, which has claimed more than 150,000 American lives.
More than 57,000 new cases of COVID-19 were identified in the United States on Tuesday, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
The latest daily caseload is about 10,000 more than the previous day's increase but still lower than the country's record set on July 16, when more than 77,000 new cases were identified in a 24-hour reporting period.
A total of 4,771,519 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 156,830 of them have died, according to Johns Hopkins. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.
Layoffs are coming at small businesses with loans running out [via Bloomberg]
One-fifth of small companies are planning to dismiss workers or have already done so after using up their federal Paycheck Protection Program loans, and nearly half of firms said they will need additional aid over the next year, according to a National Federation of Independent Business survey. Another poll led by Cornell University showed about one in four workers hired back thanks to PPP were told by their employer they may be fired again.
Biden will no longer travel to DNC to accept Democratic nomination amid pandemic [via ABC News]
Former Vice President Joe Biden and the rest of the planned convention speakers will not travel to Wisconsin for the quadrennial Democratic National Convention, according to a release from its committee Wednesday, citing health concerns with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Biden, who was scheduled to accept the party's nomination in the key battleground state on Aug. 20, will now accept the nomination from Delaware.
