Story at a glance
- NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio anticipates hundreds of thousands of people returning to work upon city’s reopening.
- A formal announcement regarding Phase One will occur in early June.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) expects approximately 200,000 to 400,000 employees will return to work as part of the first phase of the city’s gradual economic reopening.
“We’re now actually in a position to start talking about opening things up, step by step, phase by phase,” De Blasio said Thursday at a daily briefing, per Reuters. De Blasio says that he expected the first phase of reopening to be formally announced during the first two weeks of June.
The first phase will be focusing on restarting previously closed nonessential business sectors, including construction, manufacturing, wholesale suppliers and nonessential retail.
De Blasio also told the press that next week the city will launch multiple initiatives to help businesses reopen safely. One such effort will involve the development of a hotline dedicated to guiding businesses to restart.
This comes as New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said on Thursday that he will be signing an executive order that allows private businesses to deny entry to customers who do not wear masks or other types of face coverings as the highly affected areas begin to reopen.
“The masks work, they work,” Cuomo said. “And we have to culturalize the masks, we have to customize the masks for New York, to get New Yorkers to wear them.”
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