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New York City Begins Reopening After Three Months Of Outbreak Hardship

Getting here took the sacrifice of millions of New Yorkers who learned to live radically different lives. More than 205,000 have been infected, and nearly 22,000 have died.

Exactly 100 days since its first case of coronavirus was confirmed, New York City, which weathered extensive hardship as an epicentre of the worldwide outbreak, takes the first tentative steps toward reopening its doors on Monday.

Getting here took the sacrifice of millions of New Yorkers who learned to live radically different lives. More than 205,000 have been infected, and nearly 22,000 have died, New York Times reports.

As many as 400,000 workers could begin returning to construction jobs, manufacturing sites and retail stores in the city’s first phase of reopening— a surge of normalcy that seemed almost inconceivable several weeks ago, when the city’s hospitals were at a breaking point and as many as 800 people were dying from COVID-19 in a single day. 

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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, wrote on Twitter, “New York City: We are lifting the curfew, effective immediately. Yesterday and last night we saw the very best of our city. Tomorrow we take the first big step to restart. Keep staying safe. Keep looking out for each other.”

Many retail stores, battered by months of closure, are readying to do business again, starting with curbside and in-store pickup. Construction companies are adding safety features and stockpiling masks and gloves. Manufacturers, whose shop floors have idled since March, are testing machines.

State and city officials said they were optimistic that the city would begin to spring back to life. Testing is robust, reaching 33,000 people on a recent day. And new infections are now down to around 500 a day — half as many as there were just a few weeks ago.

That is low enough for New York City’s corps of contract tracers, who began work last week, to try to track every close interaction and, officials hope, stop a resurgence of the virus.