'No practical way’: Cuomo spares New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania from N.Y. quarantine list despite COVID spikes
Consider it a neighborly exception.
New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania residents will not have to quarantine if they come to New York despite soaring COVID-19 infection rates in the Northeastern states, Gov. Cuomo said Tuesday.
On a conference call with reporters, Cuomo said he’s letting the three states off the hook because “there’s no practical way" to enforce the quarantine travel advisory in the greater tristate area.
“There’s just too many interchanges,” Cuomo said.
Cuomo’s sparing of New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania comes even though all three states have on average reported more than 10 new COVID-19 infections per every 100,000 residents over the past week — a datapoint that should put them on the list of states whose residents must quarantine for at least 14 days upon arrival in New York.
But Cuomo said economic impact had to be considered in the case of the three neighboring states.
“You have people going back and forth for work. You have trucks coming in bringing staple goods all day. It would be highly problematic, and it would be really devastating for the economy,” said Cuomo, who has gained a reputation for deferring to public health over economic considerations during the pandemic.
While Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut dodged a bullet, Cuomo added Maryland and Arizona to the quarantine list, meaning a whopping 40 states are now on it.
Cuomo suggested he might issue some alternative guidance on travel in the greater tristate area in lieu of the quarantine list exemption.
“To the extent travel between the states is non-essential, it should be avoided,” Cuomo said, adding he’ll have more details on that front Wednesday after conferring with his New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania counterparts.
On an unrelated note, Cuomo also announced on the conference call that he’s extending a moratorium on coronavirus-related commercial evictions through Jan. 1 amid continued financial fallout from the pandemic.
“That will now align with our residential eviction moratorium so they are both extended to the same date," he said.
Cuomo’s travel advisory update came as New York’s COVID-19 curve continued to trend in the right direction.
The cumulative positivity rate in the state’s so-called “red zones” dropped to 2.9% on Monday, down 0.4% since Sunday, according to the State Department of Health data.
In light of the progress, Cuomo will on Wednesday announce an adjustment to the shutdowns of non-essential businesses and schools in the red zones, which are located in parts of southern Brooklyn, Queens, Orange County and Rockland County. The exact nature of the adjustments is not yet clear, though Cuomo has said he will take a “micro” approach toward determining the scope and sizes of the zones.
Excluding the red zones, New York’s statewide positivity rate on Monday was 1.2%, one of the lowest in the country, according to state data.
Cuomo marveled at the progress the state has achieved since the outset of the pandemic, when hundreds of New Yorkers died from COVID-19 every day.
“This is really a bizarre outcome,” Cuomo said. “New York had the highest infection rate — we now have 43 states on our quarantine list. It just shows you how different this situation is now right.”
