jdagostino@observertoday.com
New York state intends to follow the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s new recommendations on outdoor mask use for fully vaccinated people.
Released Tuesday, the guidelines state that fully vaccinated people defined as two or more weeks after receiving the second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine no longer need to wear masks outdoors, except in certain crowded settings and venues. However, masks should still be worn indoors and by people who are not fully vaccinated. This guidance re-emphasizes the importance of getting vaccinated and closely adhering to public health guidance, particularly if you are not yet vaccinated.
editorial@post-journal.com
ALBANY (AP) More people in New York will be able to attend outdoor sport games and concerts, go to the gym and casinos, and work in offices starting in mid-May, the state’s governor announced Monday.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that large-scale outdoor event venues can operate at 33% of capacity starting May 19 for professional and collegiate sports and live entertainment events. That’s up from 20% currently.
New York will ease other capacity limits by May 15: gyms and fitness centers outside of New York City can move to 50%, up from 33%. Casinos and gaming facilities will increase from 25% to 50% capacity, while offices will increase from 50% to 75% capacity.
jwhittaker@post-journal.com
State guidance aimed at getting more students back into school is making life harder for the Clymer Central School District.
On April 10, state officials revised the guidance on social distancing for schools. The revised state guidelines allow for at least 3 feet of distance between students in elementary, middle and high school classrooms in counties with a low or moderate risk of transmission. In counties where infection rates are high, middle and high schools should still aim for 6 feet of distancing unless they can maintain “cohorting,” where groups of students remain together through the day.
At the same time, the state changed its guidance on mask wearing in school. For Clymer Central School students, that means now wearing masks all day instead of just when they are moving around the building even though the district has been open five days a week with more than 90% of its students attending with the more relaxed mask guidelines. The distric
AP photo
The Census Bureau says it will be releasing the numbers used for determining how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state gets on Monday.
The release of the apportionment numbers Monday afternoon comes almost four months later than planned because of delays caused by the pandemic and anomalies discovered in the data as the numbers were being crunched.
The numbers are state population counts that show how many residents each state has gained or lost over the past decade.
The 435 seats in the House of Representatives are divided among the states based on population. As growing states get more congressional seats because of population gains, that means fewer seats for states that lost population or didn’t grow as fast.
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
NEW YORK (AP) Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer appeared at a Manhattan seafood eatery on Sunday to urge restauraters to apply for the soon-to-launch $28.6 billion federal restaurant relief program.
“Our purpose here is to tell the restaurants of New York, ‘Get ready, help is on the way, ” the New York Democrat said at Crave Fishbar in Midtown Manhattan.
The restaurant relief program, part of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package signed into law last month, will let restaurant owners apply for grants to cover coronavirus-related losses from last year and this year. The maximum grant for an individual restaurant is $5 million.