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Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday teased an economic reopening of New York City within the next few weeks — promising that “you’re going to see the arts coming back.”
“You’ll see the reopening of New York City within these coming weeks,” Cuomo said on MSNBC, though he provided few details.
“I laid out in my State of the State … a whole recovery plan because urban areas by and large all across the nation by and large are suffering,” he said.
“You saw a lot of people leave New York City and other urban areas. If you take away from New York City, restaurants, arts what’s the point of New York City? The cities survive because of the density and synergy with culture and arts.”
He added: “We’re starting a whole pop-up arts function primarily in New York City where you’re going to see the arts coming back.
“I think it’s a moment to rebuild our urban areas, otherwise with zoom remote work, remote learning, you’re gonna see urban areas suffer dramatically and I think and we have to anticipate that and start the reconstruction now.”
On Tuesday, President Biden vowed to ramp up states’ allocations of the coronavirus vaccine by about 15 percent next week — and said the federal government has standing orders for another 200 million doses in the future.
The move, which will increase the weekly allotment to states from 8.6 million doses to at least 10 million, came as local leaders have repeatedly implored the White House for increased access to the life-saving shots.
This week, New York state got about 250,000 of the first doses. With the boost in doses, the state should receive about 288,000 shots.
“This was a major positive for governors all across the states,” Cuomo told MSNBC on Wednesday.
“States can only do what states can do, right? Only Jesus was capable of the miracle of loaves and fishes, right? We can only administer the vaccine that we receive. Take a state like New York, we are effectively out of the vaccine,” he continued.
He noted that 7 million New Yorkers are now eligible to be vaccinated — but claimed that the state could inoculate its entire population in one month if we had the supplies.
“It would take seven months just to get the vaccine to the people who are now told they’re eligible, so that’s why they sit there hitting refresh, refresh, refresh, they are chasing vaccine supply that is frankly not there,” Cuomo said.
“We have 300,000 providers who are now online. We have mass distribution sites that could do hundreds of thousands. This is purely a supply issue.”
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