As New Yorkers Move Forward With Reopening, Many Worry That Out-Of-State Visitors Will Bring Virus Back
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- As New Yorkers celebrated recovering from COVID-19 over cocktails and retail therapy Monday, gloom and panic set in for other parts of the country and the world.
Over the weekend, the World Health Organization announced the largest single-day increase of coronavirus cases: More than 183,000.
"People are getting a little too loose, a little too free. The virus has not gone anywhere," Hell's Kitchen resident Katherine Farmer told CBS2's Christina Fan.
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Families want to know what New York is doing to stop new cases from coming back.
It's a question CBS2 has posed for months to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who repeatedly blamed the first wave of infections on the federal government and international flights.
"What do you do as the governor here?" CBS2's Dave Carlin asked Cuomo in May.
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"It's questionable about what the state's role is, but it's something we're watching, taking temperatures of people coming in," he said.
With many of the world's biggest new hotspots emerging within the U.S., CBS2 again asked Cuomo on Monday about his plan to track domestic travelers. His office did not respond to our questions, but he addressed the issue on cable news.
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"We are seriously considering, and I am talking to my neighboring states, because for one state to act, it's more effective if we act as a regional collaboration. And I'm talking to them about putting in guidelines," Cuomo said.
The guidelines include a possible quarantine -- a measure Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis placed on New Yorkers fleeing south three months ago. Now, Cuomo is debating whether or not to turn the tables on Floridians escaping north.
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The governor said if he does decide on a quarantine, he wouldn't target specific states, but those with the highest infection rate, Fan reported.
