Expanded Eligibility and Reopened Application Window for COVID Rent Relief Program Governor Cuomo today announced that he will be signing an Executive Order expanding eligibility for New York State's COVID Rent Relief Program and reopening its application window.  The Governor’s Office will be announcing additional details about these adjustments in the coming days. New COVID-19 Rapid Testing Sites Statewide New York State is partnering with Prescryptive Health to provide expanded COVID-19 testing capacity across New York State, particularly in areas where [...]

“Winter Plan” Laid Out Governor Andrew Cuomo held a press conference today to lay out a new winter plan to combat COVID-19 through five targeted strategies focused on mitigating the spread of the virus and bolstering New York State hospital preparedness. These five tenets include: Continue and Strengthen New York's Targeted Micro-Cluster Strategy while Managing Hospital Capacity to Enhance and Equalize Care;Increase and Balance Testing Resources and Availability;Keep Schools Open Safely;Prevent Viral Spread from Small Gatherings; andOperationalize an Equitable and Safe [...]

Bars and Restaurants Today Governor Cuomo continued his push for vigilance by local governments in enforcing the proper guidance for patrons and operators of all bars and restaurants when dealing with the State’s social distancing standards. Additionally the Governor announced that the New York State Police (NYSP) will lead a task force with the State Liquor Authority (SLA) to investigate and shut down establishments not complying with the proper safety standards. Governor Cuomo indicated that the NYSP and the SLA will [...]

New Guidance on Reopening Schools in New York State New York State today released new guidance and guiding principles for reopening schools in the State, available here.  According to the guidance, schools in a region may be permitted to reopen if that region is in Phase 4 of the New York Forward reopening process and if the region’s daily infection rate remains below 5 percent using a 14-day average. Schools will close if the regional infection rate rises above 9 percent, [...]

New York City Indoor Dining Postponed Governor Cuomo today announced that the inclusion of indoor dining as part of New York City's anticipated Phase 3 reopening on July 6th  will be postponed given that states across the country that previously reopened indoor dining are experiencing increases in COVID-19 cases.  The duration of the postponement will depend upon several factors, including local government enforcement of social distancing, as well as business and citizen compliance with social distancing.  The Governor also will look for the spread of COVID-19 [...]

Reopening  After review by the State Department of Health and international experts, Governor Cuomo announced that the Western New York region will enter into phase 4 tomorrow. As it stands currently the remainder of the regions are in the following regions: Phase 4 Central NY Finger Lakes Mohawk Valley North County Southern Tier Phase 3 Western NY (Phase 4 on 6/30/20) Capital Region Mid-Hudson Long Island Phase 2 New York City New York City Indoor Dining Today Governor Cuomo indicated that [...]

Interstate Travel Advisory At a press conference today, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and announced a “joint incoming travel advisory.”  The travel advisory would affect all individuals traveling from states with “significant community spread” of COVID-19, requiring them to quarantine for a 14-day period from the time of last contact within the identified state. In this case the term “significant community spread” would be defined as “a state with a positive test rate [...]

New York City Cleared for Phase 2 Reopening on Monday, June 22nd New York City officially has been cleared by data experts to begin Phase 2 of the New York Forward reopening process on Monday, June 22nd.  New York State COVID-19 Numbers On average, New York State lost 25 lives daily during this past week.  While painfully high, this is the lowest such figure since the pandemic began.

Criminal Justice Reform As State localities have been instructed to begin reevaluating their local police forces, the Governor has pointed to an expanded list of question that should be answered to help direct this initiative. Reopening Continues Governor Cuomo stated that with the probably sign off of the New York State as well as international experts that are scrutinizing the current data, that New York City businesses should be prepared to move to Phase 2 on this coming Monday June 22. [...]