New York lockdowns will begin to lift May 15: Cuomo

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday that the statewide coronavirus shutdown will end on May 15 when his "PAUSE" order expires. 

Several regions in upstate and central New York have meet the state's requirements to begin reopening after Friday, several more are close to meeting requirements.

"This is the next step of this historic journey," the Democratic governor said.

Cuomo has instituted a system in which each of New York's 10 regions must meet seven criteria before reopening. The criteria points are based on infection rate and capacity. To reopen, a region must prove it has curtailed its infection rate and has the testing and hospital capacity to safely sustain their population, should the infection rate spike after reopening. 

Regions that meet the criteria check points can, after May 15, reopen construction and manufacturing businesses. There are four phases of reopening the state, the second will involve retail and finance businesses. The third will be food and hospitality services, and the final phase will include the reopening of education and entertainment centers.

After each phase is instituted, the region must monitor its coronavirus case numbers for a two week period before progressing to the next phase. Depending on setback figures, regions may be required to pull a "circuit breaker," and pause their reopening until they figure out how to combat their issues. 

Though some less condensed areas of the state are prepping for lockdown lift, the five boroughs are not. Mayor Bill de Blasio's three key metrics for measuring coronavirus case decline are: new hospital admissions, current ICU patients and percentage of people testing positive.

All categories were trending down Monday. However, infection and death rates remain far too high for the NYC mayor to consider lifting lockdown yet.

The goal for the city is to have at least 10 to 14 days of decline before lifting any restrictions. De Blasio does not believe non-essential businesses in the city will reopen before June.