NYC mayor urges caution in reopening virus-stalled economy

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio urged a cautious and deliberative approach to reviving the economy, pushing that moving too quickly could create an opportunity for the coronavirus to come roaring back.

De Blasio, whose city is the epicenter of the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak, said Wednesday that some parts of Asia have experienced a resurgence of the virus after reopening.

“We cannot allow that,” the Democrat told “Fox and Friends” a day after President Donald Trump said he’d work with governors on a plan to return things to normal nationwide by the end of the month or even sooner. “We get one chance to get it right.”

“In this case, I’ll call myself a conservative,” de Blasio added. “I think we have to be smart about doing it in stages, making sure that we can confirm that we’re containing the disease more and more, getting it back to where it was a month or two ago, before we start to open up a lot.”

De Blasio spoke after the city’s health department revised its toll of COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday by adding 3,778 “probable” coronavirus deaths among people who showed symptoms but were never tested for the virus. The new methodology raises the city’s virus toll to more than 10,000.

“The first thing to think about is the human reality of thousands more human beings we lost and families that are in pain,” de Blasio said. “But then we also have to think about what it means for all of us and to really recognize the sheer ferocity of this disease.”

In an earlier interview on CNN’s “New Day,” de Blasio said the new numbers show New Yorkers that “we’ve all gone through hell here.”