North Country region cleared for Phase 1 of reopening

(WSYR-TV) — One region that will be allowed to partially reopen on Friday is the North Country.

This allows seven counties to start Phase One of the reopening. These counties include Jefferson, Lewis and Saint Lawrence.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo held his daily briefing on Wednesday at the Jefferson Community College in Watertown. Earlier in the week, the North Country was lacking in the testing metric to reopen. Those numbers have improved enough to change that.

We do everything on the facts and the netrics and the data and to be able to ensure a region has the appropriate testing capacity to gauge what is going on is critically important… Now, the North Country has met the criteria and moving forward we are confident they have the testing capacity to reopen.

Melissa DeRosa — Secretary to the governor

The governor also mentioned that 12 more counties can begin elective surgeries. Those counties included Cayuga and Cortland.