Name: With COVID surging, Cuomo says fans will be allowed at Bills Stadium
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With COVID surging, Cuomo says fans will be allowed at Bills Stadium

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ALBANY — With positivity rates soaring to heights not seen since the dangerous days of the spring, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that the Buffalo Bills will host nearly 7,000 fans at their stadium for their first-round NFL playoff game next week."I'm going to take my test and be out there to watch the game with you," added Cuomo, who said he was a Bills fan.Under the plan developed by the Bills, Cuomo's Department of Health and a medical company that's providing the tests, the Bills would allow 6,772 fans into the stadium for the game, which will be held either Jan. 9 or 10. Tickets will be available to season ticket holders starting Friday. Fans will pay $63 to be tested before the game; if they test positive, they would not be allowed into the stadium. (The ticket price would be refunded, but not the cost of the test.)Cuomo framed the program as a "pilot" that could establish a model for reopening other businesses in the future. The Bills game provides a good test, he said, because there is control over who is allowed into the stadium and it is outdoors."If it works there, can you do Madison Square Garden," Cuomo said. "Can you do a theater on Broadway? Could you do a certain capacity on a restaurant, so restaurants could start to open safely?”He did not elaborate on how hosting fans at an outdoor football game could provide lessons applicable to indoor dining or other businesses, but he said the runway for achieving a critical mass in vaccination is so long — potentially nine to 12 months — that a total shutdown until then is unfeasible.“If your position is there’s nothing we can do while the virus is here, you’re going to really have to be digging through the rubble, my friend," Cuomo said. "And I’m in the business of trying to avoid rubble and devastation.”Separately, the governor railed against "COVID fatigue," attributing the recent surge of COVID-19 to people getting sick of following health and safety guidelines. He said that existing restrictions may not be as effective as they once were because small gatherings and holiday parties are spreading COVID, and people are not taking the risk of spread seriously enough.The governor has said throughout the fall that early January could be the most dangerous time for COVID cases as successive surges build in part due to increased social activity connected to Thanksgiving, the winter holidays and the New Year. The state positivity rate reported Wednesday was 8.66 percent, and hospitalizations continued to climb, and are already at their highest numbers since spring. More than 200,000 New Yorkers have been vaccinated.The Capital Region's seven-day positivity rate was 9.09 percent, which was highlighted red on Cuomo's Powerpoint slide during the Wednesday briefing.“We hope it is episodic, but there’s been a significantly increase in those areas and we are watching them closely," he said of the upticks in certain regions.

ALBANY — With positivity rates soaring to heights not seen since the dangerous days of the spring, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that the Buffalo Bills will host nearly 7,000 fans at their stadium for their first-round NFL playoff game next week."I'm going to take my test and be out there to watch the game with you," added Cuomo, who said he was a Bills fan.Under the plan developed by the Bills, Cuomo's Department of Health and a medical company that's providing the tests, the Bills would allow 6,772 fans into the stadium for the game, which will be held either Jan. 9 or 10. Tickets will...

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Edward McKinley

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With COVID surging, Cuomo says fans will be allowed at Bills Stadium

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