NEW YORK CITY — New Yorkers should prepare for a shelter-in-place order that could come within the next 48 hours, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday.
“New Yorkers should be prepared right now for a shelter-in-place order,” de Blasio said. “It has not happened yet, but it is a definite possibility at this point.”
The decision would allow New Yorkers to leave their homes only for essential goods, services and activity, the mayor said.
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De Blasio acknowledged the city would face enormous challenges, such as how to best connect New Yorkers to needed resources especially with lost and restricted incomes.
“A shelter-in-place begs a lot of questions,” the mayor said. “Those questions are particularly difficult in a city as large as New York City.”
The city would likely move to ease the financial burden by halting evictions, but other resources would be more difficult to supply to New Yorkers.
“You gotta pay for food,” de Blasio noted.
New York City would partner with New York state and police to create a monitoring system to allow leeway for grocery store and pharmacy visits, the mayor said.
That announcement contradicts Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s assertion Tuesday that the order would need to come from the state and was not imminent.
Secretary to the Governor Melissa Derosa issued a statement reaffirming Cuomo was not considering the action.
“Any blanket quarantine or shelter-in-place policy would require state action and, as the governor has said, there is no consideration of that for any locality at this time,” Derosa said.
De Blasio admitted he had not yet spoken directly to Cuomo about the decision.
“I look forward to talking to the governor directly about it,” de Blasio said. “We’ve had a variety of conversations on the staff level.”
There are 814 cases of the new coronavirus in New York City, already more than 100 higher than the 644 cases Gov. Cuomo reported earlier Tuesday, the mayor said.
The breakdown is 248 in Queens, 277 in Manhattan, 157 in Brooklyn, 96 in The Bronx and 36 in Staten Island, the mayor said.
Thus far, COVID-19 has claimed the lives of seven New York City dwellers.