New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is pushing for a shelter-in-place order despite Gov. Andrew Cuomo saying he would not approve one.
In a Wednesday afternoon interview with a local TV station, de Blasio said he had a “very good conversation” with Cuomo an hour earlier. The mayor said he is pressing for measures similar to those San Francisco implemented this week in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s not shutting down the city,” de Blasio said, according to CNBC. He noted that tunnels and bridges would not be shut down if a shelter-in-place order were to be implemented.
Earlier on Wednesday, Cuomo dismissed the prospect of such an order and said his power as governor would overrule any order that could come from the municipal level.
“That is not going to happen, shelter in place, for New York City,” Cuomo said on The Daily podcast by the New York Times. “For any city or county to take an emergency action, the state has to approve it. And I wouldn’t approve shelter in place.”
New York City has seen an explosion in COVID-19 cases, with numbers in the city surging to almost 1,900 as of Wednesday afternoon.
Six counties in the San Francisco Bay Area announced shelter-in-place polices on Monday. The guidance requires that people must remain inside their homes and only leave to exercise, buy food, or pick up medical supplies.
Appearing just after de Blasio made the comments about a shelter-in-place order, Cuomo was interviewed by CNN and was asked about that concept. Cuomo said he and the mayor spoke, but he bucked the notion of “quarantining the city.”
“We talked about the options that we have, right? You can close businesses. You can restrict travel, etc.,” Cuomo said. “I am not in favor of quarantining the city. I’m not in favor of imprisoning people, but, obviously, everybody wants the same thing, reduce the density because density is where this virus communicates and transfers.”
When he was pushed again on whether a shelter-in-place order could happen, Cuomo argued the phrase was deceptive.
“‘Shelter in place’ is little deceptive. It sounds like you are imprisoned in your home, but that’s not actually what it is,” the governor said. “It says you can go to the doctor. You can go to the store. You can go outside for exercise. So, I am not going to imprison anywhere individual mobility and liberty. It’s the cornerstone of who we are, and there are ways to do this without that.”
In the United States, there have been at least 7,324 cases of the coronavirus, 17 recoveries, and 115 deaths, according to the latest reading by the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
