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New York to Begin Limited Reopening in Upstate Region

Parts of New York that have met seven health and testing criteria will be allowed to restart construction, manufacturing and curbside retail.

Parts of New York, including Rochester, will be permitted to resume some economic activity this weekend. Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

In the most concrete step toward restarting his battered and shuttered state, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Monday that large chunks of New York State’s central interior will be allowed to partially reopen construction, manufacturing and curbside retail this weekend.

The move toward a limited, regional reopening came 10 weeks after the state’s first confirmed case of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 26,000 people in New York and sickened hundreds of thousands more. That toll has been largely borne by New York City and its populous suburbs, with far fewer cases and fatalities thus far in the state’s more rural communities and smaller cities.

Indeed, Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday offered a more sobering assessment for the city, the nation’s financial capital, saying that no reopening of any kind would be likely there until June, at the earliest.

And even as Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, announced that three regions — the Finger Lakes, including Rochester, a major city on Lake Ontario; the Southern Tier, which borders Pennsylvania; and the Mohawk Valley, west of Albany — have successfully met benchmarks for reopening, there still remained many hurdles to clear.

Newly formed regional “control rooms” will be granted oversight and authority to give businesses the go-ahead to open; they can also impose their own safety requirements. They will have the authority to slow or shut down reopening plans, Mr. Cuomo said, if data about the disease shows a worsening of conditions.

Businesses will also carry a heavy burden, as employees return to radically altered work spaces, operating under tight controls, including social-distancing protocols, staggered shifts and frequent cleaning and disinfecting. Company cafeterias would most likely be closed, Mr. Cuomo suggested, and employees subject to testing in the case of outbreaks.

“There’s no gathering,” Mr. Cuomo said. “That’s what we’re trying to avoid.”

Retail businesses would also be allowed to reopen for curbside service under the plan, with employees in masks. Health screening would also be required of all businesses in the first phase, which would be evaluated after two weeks to determine its impact on the spread of the disease.

“We are all anxious to get back to work,” Mr. Cuomo said, in a briefing in Irondequoit, near Rochester. “We want to do it smartly, we want to do it intelligently, but we want to do it.”

Mr. Cuomo noted that the number of new hospitalizations statewide for Covid-19 — the disease caused by the coronavirus — was roughly the same as it was just before he issued the statewide stay-at-home order, known as New York State On Pause. The number of deaths reported on Sunday — 161 — was the lowest daily death toll since late March.

In light of such statistics, the governor said other smaller semblances of normal life would be allowed to resume across the state, including drive-in movies, landscaping projects and “low-risk recreational activities,” such as tennis, a sport with built-in social distancing.

The decision to restart the commercial and professional lives of some New Yorkers was welcomed by business leaders, who have watched as more than one million state residents have lost their jobs since early March.

In Rochester, the largest city eligible to reopen some of its businesses, Ashley Mayberry-O’Connell, an executive at QES Solutions, a business support company, said the firm had laid off about 85 percent of its 80-person work force, but hoped to “hire all our employees back” in light of the governor’s announcement.

But Mr. Cuomo’s announcement also left state business leaders with numerous questions.

“What’s not clear yet is exactly what the state is going to expect from you,” said Ken Pokalsky, the vice president at the Business Council of New York State. “Do you just say, ‘I have a plan’ and you’re good to go? Or are there going to be some additional details you need to provide?”

Robert Duffy, the former lieutenant governor and member of the Finger Lakes control room, said it would be the companies’ responsibility to meet the safety criteria laid out by the governor.

And while Mr. Duffy said many business want to reopen, having taken “some huge economic hits,” he acknowledged that “there is also trepidation among employees and customers” as reopening progresses.

“I don’t believe people are going to rush back to a crowded restaurant,” Mr. Duffy said. “They’re not going to jump in a plane. They may be afraid to go back to their gym or fitness center.”

The state’s nonessential businesses have been closed since March 22, under a stay-at-home order issued by Mr. Cuomo, and extended in mid-April.

As the state’s daily death toll began to slacken, the governor had laid out a detailed plan for reopening last week, requiring each of 10 regions around the state to fulfill seven metrics in order to prove readiness to reopen. Those include beefing up testing and contact tracing, ensuring hospital capacity and showing sustained declines in deaths and new cases of the virus.

Two other regions, in central New York and the Adirondack Mountains, are meeting six of the seven metrics. But the city and two other surrounding areas — Long Island and the Hudson Valley — continued to be hindered by stubbornly high hospitalization rates.

On Monday, Mr. de Blasio confirmed that “unless something miraculous happens,” the city’s shutdown — and concomitant financial hardship — were “going into June.” And like the governor, the mayor said any opening was reliant on the data.

“It’s not quite been what we need it to be, but definitely trending the right direction,” said Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat. “But we need to see it sustained in a deeper way.”

With the formation of regional “control rooms,” Mr. Cuomo seemed to be ceding greater autonomy and responsibility to regional leaders for the state’s reopening, including monitoring how businesses implemented safety protocols.

Those groups — largely made up of elected officials — will also be charged with solving a battery of practical problems, like arranging child care for workers now being called back to the job, Mr. Cuomo said. The governor canceled school statewide for the rest of the academic year on May 1.

Reopening is likely to be a slow process, even in the three regions which Mr. Cuomo cited on Monday. In addition to manufacturing and construction, the three Fs will also be allowed: farming, fishing and forestry, as well as retail, but only with customer pickups and drop-offs.

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The partial lifting of the statewide shutdown is expected to help places like Morrisville, N.Y., just east of Syracuse.Credit...Heather Ainsworth for The New York Times

If no negative impact is seen from the first phase, the second phase would include allowing professional services, real estate and finance, among other businesses.

Restaurants, bars and hotels would come next, followed by a final phase that would include attractions like cinemas and theaters, including Broadway, a powerful economic engine in New York City, and schools.

The reopening process could still be endangered by new outbreaks, Mr. Cuomo said, noting that a faulty reopening could inflict even more damage on public health and the economy. Mr. Cuomo said he wanted to “learn from the mistakes that others have made.”

He also gave credit to the state’s residents for helping bend the curve of infections by observing social distancing and other rules and pleaded for continued cooperation.

“This is not the floodgates are open, go back, do everything you were doing,” Mr. Cuomo said, adding, “No one’s going to protect your health but you.”

Lauren D’Avolio contributed from Irondequoit, N.Y., and Luis Ferré-Sadurní contributed reporting.

Jesse McKinley is the Albany bureau chief. He was previously the San Francisco bureau chief, and a theater columnist and Broadway reporter for the Culture Desk. More about Jesse McKinley

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 16 of the New York edition with the headline: Portions of New York Can Take Baby Steps To Reopen, Cuomo Says. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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