New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, has issued an executive order on Thursday 28th May 2020 authorizing businesses, shops and stores to deny services to customers who refuse to wear masks when business activities resume.
The order was given in a strict attempt to ensure safety of New Yorkers and to effectively curtail the spread of the virus.
While speaking about the need to use the mask to curtail the spread of the virus, the governor said face covering is a very effective way of keeping the virus at bay.
“They are amazingly effective and we’ve made them mandatory in public settings,” Cuomo said.
“But when we’re talking about reopening stores and places of business, we’re giving the store owners the right to say if you’re not wearing a mask you can’t come in,” he stated.
He empowered business owners to refuse services to anyone who fails to use the face masks.
In his daily coronavirus briefing on Thursday in Brooklyn, the governor added a twist as he was joined by comedian Chris Rock and actress Rosie Perez who urged New Yorkers to wear masks, get tested and help combat coronavirus.
Commending Cuomo on his ways of curtailing the virus, Rock said, “Everybody that can get tested should get tested as soon as possible.
“Everybody, please, spread love the Brooklyn way, get tested, wear a mask. Our governor is a rock star and he makes me proud to be from New York,” Perez said.
Replying to Rock and Perez words, Cuomo said, “You guys are the rock stars. I’m just a fan.”
Governor Cuomo gave the reason while he had invited the celebrities.
He had invited them to lend their voice to the message to ask New Yorkers respect one another and take precautionary measures to help curtail the spread of the pandemic.
Cuomo further said that in their response to the virus, the state officers are actually focusing on hot spots of the virus especially in low income and minority neighborhoods across the city.
New York has been the epicenter of the pandemic and would need to double up its hospital capacity while it would also need to include contact tracers to enable constructions and manufacturing meet the state-set benchmarks for them to reopen.
The governor confirmed 1,768 additional cases of the virus, bringing the state total to 366,733 with additional 74 recorded deaths bringing coronavirus related death toll to 23,282.
Cuomo however raised concern that for the foreseeable future the virus could remain a cause of death even though as at now the number of hospitalization and deaths has reduced to some extent.
He therefore warned that the battle against the pandemic is yet to be over.
“We have a large state, and the COVID virus tends to attack those who are seniors and those who have underlying illnesses and will remain a cause of death for the foreseeable future, I’m afraid to say,” said Cuomo.
“But we want to get this number down as low as possible,” he added, reiterating the state commitment to drastically curtail the virus.
