Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city is preparing unprecedented measures to contain the coronavirus by limiting public gatherings — including possibly closing Broadway — as nine new cases bumped the Big Apple’s tally to 62, he said Thursday.
“We’re going to have to introduce more and more restrictions, which we’re certainly going to be doing in New York City today and tomorrow,” he said on CNN. There are nine new coronavirus cases in the city since Wednesday.
De Blasio did not get into specifics but said the changes would “somehow balance the need to keep as much normalcy in society as possible while reducing the gatherings that are causing concern, giving people more space.”
He said the city would launch “new models that we’ve never used before.”
But Hizzoner hedged on completely shuttering Broadway.
“I don’t want to see Broadway go dark if we can avoid it. I want to see if we strike some kind of balance,” he said. “If we cannot strike the balance, of course we can go to closure, that’s the decision we will make right away.”
So far, there is no plan to shut down schools or mass transit.
“We’re not going to shut down a subway system,” de Blasio said.
“If you shut down a subway system, then you’re shutting down an economy and you’re shutting down work and livelihood,” he said.
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