The Yankees were supposed to play a three-game set against the Texas Rangers this week if Major League Baseball had not been put on hold by the coronavirus. But Mayor Bill de Blasio invoked a teamwork analogy Monday as he introduced a new system for tracking progress in the city’s fight against COVID.
In his daily press briefing, de Blasio encouraged residents to follow three indicators, and said his administration will use them to decide when and how COVID restrictions can be loosened or need to be tightened.
The indicators are: the number of people admitted to hospitals for suspected COVID-19 conditions; people in the intensive care units of the city’s public hospitals for suspected COVID-19; and the percentage of city residents who test positive for COVID-19.
All three indicators, captured Saturday, were showing improvement from the previous day, he said, pointing to numbers with arrows pointing downward.
“This is a very good day,” de Blasio said, even while cautioning that the numbers could be expected to fluctuate for awhile. “Now we’ve got to keep working all together to keep these numbers moving in the right direction,“ he said.
The mayor asked New Yorkers to take the numbers personally, and to continue social distancing practices. “There will never be a moment that’s more important to act as a team,” he said. “We have a lot more to do to keep that progress going, to get to the point where we might be able to ease some of the transmissions.
The figures for the three indicators can be seen on the city’s coronavirus information page. They will be updated daily but typically have a 48-hour lag because of individual hospitals’ respective reporting practices.
He gave no specific goals for when changes to restrictions will occur, nor did he announce any details as to what restrictions would be lifted first if the numbers continue to decrease or what restrictions would be imposed should they rise.
The city Department of Health has been releasing daily reports on COVID-19 figures on its data portal since March. The reports display the numbers of cases, hospitalizations and deaths broken down by geography and demographics.
The Mott Haven Herald and Hunts Point Express launched a website that displays Bronx specific COVID-19 figures. The figures are from the New York City Department of Health and are updated daily.
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