Coronavirus Update: Optimism Reigns In Hotel Industry As Some In NYC Start Booking Rooms For Summer
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The light at the end of this isolating tunnel may be more visible than you think.
Many hotels are now taking reservations for July and Gov. Andrew Cuomo is beginning to look at how people are going to eventually return to work.
The "Crossroads of the World" is at a standstill, but a couple months from now the hope is it's all a distant memory. Twenty four hotels, including Pod Times Square and Wellington Hotel in Manhattan, are now taking reservations for July 1. Richard Born is the principle of the company operating those properties -- BD Hotels.
"I'm optimistic about the city of New York. I'm optimistic about my industry. I'm optimistic about my business," Born told CBS2's Lisa Rozner on Tuesday.
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He has made the call to even book meetings and events for July by looking at the trajectory of other countries, estimating the area's coronavirus cases will peak in four to six weeks, and then take just as long to decrease.
"So if I project out three months, it's just about July 1, which is what we're looking at and then we're looking at July and August as a period in time where things start to normalize," Born said.
MORE: Coronavirus Update: White House Urges Anyone Leaving NYC To Self-Quarantine For 14 Days
On Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said while we're in "New York pause," we need to think about New York forward. He cited a theory from Dr. David Katz at Yale University.
"As you're identifying people who have had the virus and have resolved, can they start to go back to work. Can younger people start to go back to work because they're more much tolerant to the effect of the virus," Cuomo said.
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Katz said we may be able to let people back to work in waves, but added those who are infected need to be closely tracked, as well as identifying who's most at risk.
"Life as we know it is over, no! Theres actually a plan. There's actually a plan to evolve this as our understanding of whose at risk evolves so this just phase one," Katz said.
Saving lives from the virus and from economic ruin is the goal, but Katz said, ultimately, there is closure when there is an effective treatment or herd immunity. But nothing is certain, so, still, once things reopen the virus could ebb and low, causing temporary timeouts. Katz guesses it will take a few months before grandparents can hug their grandchildren again."
