ALBANY - Fearing a spike in coronavirus cases, New York City will not move forward with indoor dining next week as originally planned.
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday the city would focus on outdoor dining that started last month for the foreseeable future as New York tries to keep its COVID-19 infection rates low amid a surge across the nation.
"Indoors is the problem more and more," de Blasio said. "We cannot go ahead at this point in time with indoor dining in New York City."
The move comes amid growing concern about indoor activities and risk of coronavirus spread.
On Tuesday, New Jersey delayed its opening of indoor dining, and California, Florida and Texas has shuttered restaurants and bars as new cases hit record highs in the South and West.
New York City is poised to enter Phase 3 of the state's four-phase reopening plan on Monday, which would allow for indoor dining.
But de Blasio said in consultant with the state, the city decided it was too risky to move ahead.
New York has had nearly 25,000 deaths due to the virus since the pandemic struck in March, with the majority of those in the city and its suburbs.
The Democratic mayor said the city has more than 6,600 restaurants and bars open with outdoor dining, which started two weeks ago and appears to be the safer option.
"Outdoor dining unquestionably has been a great hit," de Blasio said. "I think the bottom line is outdoors is working, period. This is one of the things we have learned."
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has also raised concern about indoor dining, which is allowed in the rest of New York with safety restrictions, such as limiting capacity to 50%.
He has urged local governments to enforce the executive orders that limit indoor and outdoor dining, citing scenes across the state of patrons not adhering to social distancing.
"Our reopenings have worked very well," Cuomo said Monday.
"We're not going backwards, we're going forwards."
Joseph Spector is the New York state editor for the USA TODAY Network. He can be reached at JSPECTOR@Gannett.com or followed on Twitter: @GannettAlbany
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