New Yellow Zones Announced On Long Island As Coronavirus Spikes

LONG ISLAND, NY — Parts of Long Island will become yellow zones, meaning new restrictions are coming for indoor and outdoor dining, gatherings and schools amid rising coronavirus cases and hospitalizations.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday said Riverhead and Hampton Bays in Suffolk County and Great Neck and Massapequa Park in Nassau County will become yellow zones.

Cuomo announced new yellow and orange zones in New York City as well. Upper Manhattan will enter a yellow zone, while parts of Staten Island will enter both orange and yellow zones.

Under the state's guidance for yellow zones, non-residential gatherings are restricted to 25 people indoors and outdoors, and residential gatherings are capped at 10 indoors and outdoors. Houses of worship are limited to half capacity, and restaurants must limit tables to no more than four patrons. Schools can remain open, but must test 20 percent of in-person students and faculty per week.

The restrictions comes as New York has seen coronavirus hospitalizations increase 122 percent over three weeks. Cuomo warned the state is on track to reach 6,000 hospitalizations in just a few weeks, even without the expected uptick in spread due to holiday gatherings.

"These are dangerous times that we are in," Cuomo told reporters Monday.

He warned of a dangerous cocktail of factors leading to rising cases. New York is surrounded by other states that have higher coronavirus rates, and drivers routinely come back and forth. That includes Pennsylvania and New Jersey, which have positive test rates of about 11 and 8 percent, respectively. Connecticut was at nearly 6 percent Monday.

New York has an overall positivity rate of 3.08 percent when including the over-sampled micro-clusters. When excluding micro-clusters, the state's rate is at 2.73 percent.

Cuomo announced 33 more coronavirus deaths Sunday.

Coronavirus statistics in New York as of Monday:

• Positive test rate: 3.08 percent
• Deaths: 33
• Hospitalizations: 2,724 (+162)
• Patents receiving intensive care treatment: 545 (+43)
• Intubations: 249 (+15)

Cuomo identified five counties on the brink of receiving new zone designations. In Erie County, Buffalo and surrounding towns were on track to enter red zones, while Victor in Ontario County and Brewster in Putnam County were on track to enter yellow zones. In Westchester County, Yonkers, Port Chester, Ossining, New Rochelle, Tarrytown and Peekskill were on track to enter orange and red zones. Newburgh and New Windsor in Orange County, meanwhile, were on track to enter orange zones.