All New York school districts authorised to reopen: Guv Andrew Cuomo

New York, August 8

All school districts across the US state of New York have been authorised to reopen for the fall semester, Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced.

“By our infection rates, all school districts can open” with tight precautions, Cuomo said on Friday during a conference call with reporters.

Cuomo cleared the way for schools to offer at least some days of in-person classes, alongside remote learning this fall, reports Xinhua news agency.

Students will be required to wear masks throughout the school days, he added. “It is just great news,” Cuomo said.

“We are probably in the best situation in the country right now,” the Governor said, adding that they would continue to monitor the infection rate leading up to the first day of school.

“Everywhere in the state, every region is below the threshold that we established,” Cuomo said.

Last month, he said school districts would be allowed to reopen in September if the positive test rate for their region stayed below 5 per cent — a threshold every state region has met as of Friday.

Of the nearly 750 school districts, more than 120 have not submitted plans and 50 had plans that were either incomplete or deficient, Cuomo said.

He said how schools were going to test students and teachers was particularly a “high level of concern”.

Cuomo said the state’s Department of Health would continue to go through plans over the weekend.

The state of New York, once the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic in the US, has so far reported a total of 4,24,000 confirmed cases and 32,336 deaths. IANS