New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he supports the decision by New York City to reopen its schools to in-person learning.
The policy reversal comes less than two weeks after Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that schools were shutting down because of a rising number of COVID-19 cases in the city.
Cuomo said the decision to reopen schools is in keeping with what various experts have been suggesting:
"We do have new facts and new information on schools and just about every professional says the schools, especially K through 8, should be kept open whenever it’s possible to keep them open safely"
Cuomo says he will have more to say this week about the state’s plans for dealing with the rising number of COVID-19 cases this winter.
Cuomo also is warning that the state could see "a surge upon a surge" in the number of COVID cases because of the impact of both winter weather and the holidays.
At a briefing Sunday, Cuomo said that he’s hoping that even if cases continue to spike across the state for the next several days, they will begin to stabilize after New Year’s Day.
"So after New Dear’s Day, look a week or 10 days afterwards, hopefully the social activity slows at that point and the infection rates starts to level off," he said.