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WPCNR THURSDAY GOVERNOR ANDREW M. CUOMO CORONAVIRUS BREIFING. By John F. Bailey, June 18, 2020 UPDATED WITH CUOMO ON NEW NONCOMPLIANCE PENATIES. SUPPLEMENTED WITH QUESTIONS COMMUNITIES SHOULD ANSWER IN REMAKING THEIR POLICING 3:10

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo held his final coronavirus briefing today until further notice.

He announced stern penalities for establishments that ignored social distancing and masking rules. He will sign an executive order requiring communities and cities to close establishments failing to comply with social distancing, and IMMEDIATE termination of liquor licenses for restaurants failing to enforce the distancing rules, such as those restaurants last weekend where 25,000 patrons phoned the governor’s office with complaints on distancing and mask enforcement.

The governor said it was up to cities and towns to enforce those rules (presumably reporting to the state).

He said all was good news on the continued decline of coronavirus new infections in the state.

At the news conference after the briefing, he said he was considering a quarantine restriction on persons flying into New York area airports.

At the news briefing, he said he had made no budget decisions yet on cuts, because he expected the federal government would not continue to hold bankruptcy of states as an option because as the governor said, “the Dow Jones average would drop like a stone,” and their reelection would be endangered.

Tomorrow he expected to make the final decision on whether New York City could move to Phase 2 on Monday. He said the experts that analyze the daily numbers were telling him the trend is good and it look good at this time for New York City. All New York Boroughs of 5 days of infection rates at the 1% or below level.

He said that one area of the state the Central Region had an uptick in infections to 3 %. The Governor said the tracing system in place to track the contacts of new infections, “worked” and was able to isolate the breakout to an apple processing plant in Oswego.

He began the briefing by thanking the members of his panel that has appeared at the 110 briefings he has held, calling them the most professional staff he had ever worked with in his government career.

At the close of the briefing, he thanked the reporters, many of whom have attended every day, saying he respected them, and felt their hard questions helped people understand the seriousness of the coronavirus threat.

The Governor said 59 million people have watched his daily briefings.