State of the State Sneak Peek

Governor Cuomo today provided a sneak peek at his upcoming 2021 State of the State program. The Governor is looking at how the State could reopen and stay open safely by widely administering both vaccination and testing programs simultaneously. Additionally, his administration plans to focus on rebuilding the State’s economy as the State races to reopen.

 

Evictions Moratorium

The Governor announced today he also expects to issue an executive order to extend the current moratorium on evictions for both residential and commercial properties but did not specify a time frame. Currently the moratorium on residential evictions is set to expire on December 31, 2020, followed by the moratorium on commercial evictions on January 31, 2021. We should also note that the legislature is likely to return next week to pass a broader eviction moratorium and tenant protections. We will keep you posted as developments occur here.

 

COVID-19 Vaccination Update

The Governor updated the current vaccination information for the State, which has administered over 89,000 doses of the vaccine, 22,000 of which went towards nursing home residents and staff. In what is a bit of unexpected good news, the Moderna vaccination recently announced to have ten doses per vial appears to have an additional single dose, upping the number of doses available by 10%.

 

Let’s go, Buffalo!

With the Buffalo Bills having won the AFC East for the first time since 1995 and still having one home game remaining, there has been heightened public pressure on the Governor to allow fans in the stadium for upcoming games. He announced today that the State Department of Health and the Buffalo Bills are working together to finalize a plan to allow 6,700 fans into the stadium for playoff games. The plan would follow similar NFL protocols including wearing masks and following the proper social distancing. NYS officials expect to include at least two additional steps: rapid testing followed by tracing. The Governor stated the plan would be considered a public health model to safely reopen large scale venues across NYS.

 

New York State COVID-19 Numbers

The statewide positivity rate yesterday was 5.8% with 6,864 hospitalizations, an increase of 203 people over the previous day. There were 164 COVID-19 deaths in New York State yesterday.