JAMESTOWN – A new way to monitor the status of reopening regions in New York State was released this week.
The state launched a new website on Monday to monitor where each region stands in its reopening process.
Previously, the Governor set seven criteria for reopening and each region must maintain each of those criteria to progress towards a full reopening:
- Metric #1: Decline in Total Hospitalizations
- Metric #2: Decline in Deaths
- Metric #3: New Hospitalizations
- Metric #4: Hospital Bed Capacity
- Metric #5: ICU Bed Capacity
- Metric #6: Diagnostic Testing Capacity
- Metric #7: Contact Tracing Capacity
So far, only four regions met all seven criteria’s for reopening: the Southern Tier, Mohawk Valley, the Finger Lakes and North Country.
Western New York currently meets five of the seven benchmarks, falling short with the first two metrics for decline in total hospitalizations and deaths.
Phased re-openings will depend on the ability of each region to achieve 30 tests per 1,000 people per month, consistent with the recommendation of Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House Coronavirus Task Force
Thus far every region has met or is expected to meet the contact tracer requirement and New York City is the only region that did not meet the 30 percent hospital bed capacity criteria.
Each region must maintain their seven metrics qualify for a new reopening phase. If they fail to maintain one of those criterias they will be forced to reset their reopening.
It’s unclear how often the region by region status tracker will be updated by the state.
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