Governor Cuomo Increases Gatherings Limit to 25, Broome Begs for More Say

Broome County Executive Jason Garnar says with the county showing only 53 active cases of the coronavirus, the lowest since April 2^nd, he thinks localities should have more control over post-emergency policies setting the crowd size for things like high school graduations. 

New York has set the limit on graduations at 150 but the Governor June 15 increased the number allowed to gather in a single location from ten to 25. 

Broome County June 15 announced one additional death from COVID-19 and 2 new cases, bringing the death toll to 49 and cases to date to 621.

The numbers for Chenango, Cortland, Delaware and Tioga Counties all remained unchanged from Sunday’s reports.

Garnar says he sent a letter to the Governor "begging" him to allow localities to set some regulations based on their own, individual numbers.

New York State announced 620 new cases of COVID-19 and 25 deaths statewide.  Governor Andrew Cuomo says the state has reached the lowest number of hospitalizations and deaths on the three-day average over the weekend since the pandemic began.  The number of total hospitalizations was down Sunday to 1,608.

Governor Cuomo says the important thing to remember is that residents cooperating with the quarantine and now the rules for reopening with social distancing, washing hands and covering faces is what has brought the numbers down and stopping those practices is what will bring those numbers back up.

Cuomo is repeating his warning that restaurants and bars could lose their liquor licenses if they don’t comply with physical distancing, mask wearing and other guidelines that allowed them to reopen.  As for government officials, Cuomo said “Do your job!” telling authorities to enforce the rules or risk having to take a step back in the economic reopening plan.