Cuomo signs executive order requiring all New Yorkers to wear face coverings in public amid coronavirus

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New York Gov. Cuomo: Antibody test could be critical in speeding up return to normalcy

Fox News correspondent Bryan Llenas reports.

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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to sign an executive order Wednesday requiring all New Yorkers to wear face masks or coverings in public places beginning this week.

“I am issuing an Executive Order today that all people MUST wear a mask or face covering in public in situations where social distancing is not possible,” Cuomo tweeted.

“For example, if you are riding on public transit where it is impossible to maintain social distancing, or walking on a busy sidewalk, you must wear a face covering like a bandana or a mask,” he explained.

Cuomo’s order is expected to go into effect on Friday.

“We have to continue to stop the spread and this is a constant calibration also,” Cuomo said during a press conference Wednesday upon announcing his executive order, which requires that people “must wear” coverings in situations “where you are not maintaining social distancing.”

“Put the mask on when you are not in socially distant places,” Cuomo said. “It is your right to go out for a walk in the park, go out for a walk because you need to get out of the house…fine, don’t infect me. You don’t have a right to infect me.”

“You must have a mask or a cloth covering nose and mouth. That is by executive order,” he said, joking that you can wear an “attractive bandana or a color-coordinated bandana or cloth,” but then became serious again saying, “you have to wear it.”

Cuomo said that, at this point, “you won’t go to jail if you don’t wear a mask,” but that local governments “should enforce” it.

WASHINGTON DC MAYOR BOWSER ORDERS FACE MASKS MUST BE WORN FOR HOTELS, TAXIS, PUBLIC TRANSIT

Meanwhile, Cuomo on Wednesday reported that total hospitalizations in New York are still at approximately 18,000, but said that figure is reduced from last week, and called it “good news.”

“We still have on a day-to-day basis about 2,000 people who are being diagnosed with COVID, so we’re not out of the woods, no, we’re still in the woods, but good news is we can change the curve and control the spread,” Cuomo said.

Cuomo also warned that the infection rate could go up if social distancing measures are “relaxed too soon.”

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“People are asking us about reopening the economy. How do we do this?” Cuomo said. “We have to build a bridge from where we are to the reopening of the economy.”

He added: “We’re going to a different place…and a better place.”

“If we don’t learn from this then all of this will be in vain,” he added. “We’re going to a different place which is a new normal.”

Cuomo’s comments Wednesday come after he, along with the northeastern governors of New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Delaware, earlier this week announced a regional effort to eventually reopen the economy in a "coordinated way" amid the coronavirus crisis.

"We should start looking forward to 'reopening', but reopening with a plan and a smart plan because if you do it wrong, it can backfire," Cuomo said during the event. "What the art form is going to be here is doing that smartly and doing that productively and doing that in a coordinated way -- in coordination with other states in the area and doing it as a cooperative effort where we learn from each other, where we share information, share resources, where we share intelligence."

He added: "No one has done this before—it's one step forward after research and consultation with experts--I'm not a public health expert but this has to be informed by experts."

Cuomo said that each state will name an economic developer and a health official that will be led by each governor's chief of staff to "form a working group that will start work immediately on designing a reopening plan," while taking into consideration "the public health concerns and issues and the economic reactivation issues and concerns."

As of Wednesday, New York, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus in the U.S., reported more than 203,300 positive cases of COVID-19 and more than 10,800 deaths.