Cavity fighters across New York state will be able to get back to business Monday as COVID-19 cases continue to subside, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Sunday.
All dentist offices will be able to reopen June 1 under state guidelines for safety and social distancing practices. The guidance follows standards from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as it pertains to “patient management; administrative, engineering, and work practice controls; sterilization and disinfection; and considerations for the use of test-based strategies to inform patient care.”
It’s the latest sign of progress for a state slowly beginning to reopen on the 92nd day of the health crisis. Hospitalizations and intubations related to COVID-19 continue to fall statewide, Cuomo reported Sunday. There were 56 deaths statewide related to the virus on May 30, the lowest total since March.
“The reduction in New York’s new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, intubations, and other metrics represent tremendous progress from where we were,” Cuomo said. “We have gone through hell and back — we are on the other side and it’s a lesson for all of us, and we need to stay vigilant as we reopen different parts of the state so that we don’t backslide. I am also authorizing dentists to resume their practices statewide starting tomorrow as long as they follow health and safety guidelines that the state is laying out and that we have been discussing with them.”
Still, the governor’s office noted, an additional 1,100 coronavirus cases were confirmed on May 30 across New York. So far, more than 370,000 New Yorkers have been infected with the virus.
New York City is gearing up for its reopening, tentatively scheduled for June 8.
