De Blasio Projects NYC 'Orange Zone' Closures Start In December

NEW YORK CITY — Projections of coronavirus trends in New York City show the metropolis will fall under the state's threshold for a restrictive "orange zone" soon after Thanksgiving, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

"That will happen soon after Thanksgiving, probably the first week of December,” he said Friday on WNYC's "Brian Lehrer Show."

De Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week made clear the city is on an all-but-certain slide toward an "orange zone" designation that shuts down indoor dining, automatically closes private schools, sets strict capacity limits on houses of worship and halts some nonessential businesses.

The question is when the city will pass the average 3 percent positivity threshold, as measured by the state, and stays above it for 10 days.

By the city's slightly different measurement, the 3 percent mark was passed earlier this week. That prompted the citywide closure of public school buildings — a decision that, unlike the state-decided "orange zone" designation, fell to de Blasio and other city officials.

De Blasio told Lehrer the city's projections show the "orange zone" mark, as measured by the state, will be surpassed after the holiday.

He also said the city will, in the next few days, unveil a plan to reopen schools and in-person learning within them.

The closure of schools, which have been overwhelmingly safe, before indoor dining and gyms has proven controversial. Likewise, many business leaders have pointed out that the city's contact tracers haven't pinpointed major coronavirus spikes from indoor dining or gyms.

De Blasio acknowledged the relative safety of restaurants and gyms so far but said as coronavirus spikes in the city and country, that could change.

"That’s not the question — the question is where are we going,” he told Lehrer.

The city's coronavirus positivity rate stood at 3.02 percent on a seven-day average, de Blasio said. There were 1,255 new COVID-19 cases recorded in the last measurement, a figure de Blasio called "worrisome as all hell."