JULY 2021 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 13
IN THE NEWS
STATE OF EMERGENCY LIFTED
COVID THREAT FADES
Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the safe staffing bill into law, which helps healthcare facilities prepare for future emergencies, on June 23. (Courtesy Office of Gov.
Andrew Cuomo)
BY EMILY DAVENPORT
The State of New York ended its state of
emergency on June 24.
Last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo placed
New York under a state of emergency
as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
He announced during his June 23 news
conference that he will not be renewing
the state of emergency, which was set to
expire on Thursday, June 24.
“The emergency is over. It will punctuate
the expiration of the emergency that
we have been in because New Yorkers
rallied and essential workers rallied,”
said Cuomo.
The federal Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) guidelines will
stay in effect, with mandatory mask
wearing on public transportation, in
medical facilities, and inside school
buildings. Local governments can also
choose to enforce mask guidelines in
these situations.
Cuomo stated that New York would be
transitioning into a new phase called the
post-Covid emergency period. Though
Covid is far from over, Cuomo says that
the emergency is over — however, the
state will continue to monitor the virus
as more mutations arise, and work to get
more people vaccinated.
“It’s not that we believe Covid is gone.
We still have to vaccinate people, especially
young people,” said Cuomo.
“We’re still watching Covid. It would
be irresponsible and reckless not to be
wary and vigilant about Covid.”
Cuomo stressed that in this post-Covid
emergency period, it is important to
not just rebuild New York, but to make
it better than it was before and to carry
the lessons that we learned during the
pandemic, because there will be another
virus. To help be prepared for the
future, Cuomo signed the safe staffing
bill into law, which helps healthcare facilities
prepare for future emergencies.
“We don’t have the luxury to say, ‘Covid,
that’s it, never happen again,’” said Cuomo.
“It will happen again, and we need
to be prepared.”
As a thank you to the essential workers,
Cuomo announced that a special
monument will be built in Battery Park
City in Manhattan. Entitled the Circle of
Heroes Monument to Essential Workers,
the monument will be comprised
of 19 maple trees in a circle around a
path to signify the different pillars of
responsibility for each sector of essential
workers. The center will have an
eternal flame to honor the lives of those
essential workers that were lost during
the pandemic.
The monument is expected to be completed
by Labor Day 2021.
“These were people who went above
and beyond — not the millionaires in
society, not the highest-paid people in
society, but now the most important
workers in society, and they rose to the
occasion over and over,” Cuomo said.
“I believe that essential workers are
heroes in the truest sense of the word.”
This story first appeared in amNewYork
Metro.
/LONGISLANDPRESS.COM
