"And that is what we are going to build in the month of May - a contact tracing network in this city like it has never been seen before on a vast scale," de Blasio said. "The city of New York plans to hire 1,000 contact tracers immediately."
The health workers will interview people confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 to identify contacts and connect them to isolation and support.
De Blasio also said that New York City in the coming days will start offering self-swab testing to residents across eight community testing sites. The new method will help protect health care workers from potential exposure to the virus by allowing patients to administer samples by themselves and increase capacity at these sites from 15 to 20 tests performed per hour.
The COVID-19 tracking indicators in New York City remained "broadly good" during the last week; however, did not demonstrate sufficient progress for the city to start considering reopening, de Blasio emphasized.
The number of people admitted to hospitals for suspected COVID-19 has gone down from 144 on April 24 to 122 the following day, and the number of patients in intensive care units has also decreased from 768 to 766. Meanwhile, the percentage of people testing positive for COVID-19 across the city stayed the same - 29.
"I want to see more and steadier progress for us to really be able to make some of the bigger moves we all would like to make," de Blasio said.
The project will first open up streets around city parks and aims to make up to 100 miles of open space available for residents for the duration of the COVID-19 crisis.
