New York planned for a long fight against the coronavirus outbreak amid hopeful hospitalization trends. Gov. Andrew Cuomo extended stay-at-home restrictions Thursday through mid-May and New York City is getting ready to use 11,000 empty hotel rooms for coronavirus quarantines. Meanwhile, Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city is grappling with a projected $7.4 billion loss in tax revenue because of the crisis. Here are the latest coronavirus developments in New York: RESTRICTIONS EXTENDED New York state will extend its stay-at-home restrictions at least through May 15 amid signs the initial wave of the coronavirus outbreak is slowing down.

Even as politicians talk about “reopening” the country, New York is still intensifying restrictions intended to stop the coronavirus from spreading. Face coverings will be now be required in any place where people can’t stay at least six feet away from other people. While other isolation measures seem to have worked in keeping new infections down, New Yorkers continue to die by the hundreds every day. Meanwhile, New York City officials said they would create an emergency food reserve and take other steps to fight hunger in a city where huge numbers of people have been thrown out of work.

An attorney for the man accused of committing an anti-Semitic attack with a machete wants the body of the victim who later died to be exhumed. Attorney Michael Sussman wants the body of Josef Neumann exhumed for an autopsy, The Journal News reported. Neumann was one of five people injured in the attack on a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York, on Dec. 28. “We need to know medically if it’s a murder or if it’s the consequence of some disease pattern or something else,” Sussman said in an interview Tuesday. Grafton Thomas has been indicted on federal hate crime charges and state charges including attempted murder. He has pleaded not guilty. Sussman has argued that his client was not motivated by anti-Semitism and is mentally ill.

Former New York state Senate leader Dean Skelos was expected to be released soon from prison to home confinement after testing positive for the coronavirus, prosecutors told a judge Wednesday. The government notified a Manhattan federal judge Wednesday that it was informed earlier in the day that Dean Skelos, 72, was in quarantine after testing positive at the federal prison at Otisville, New York. It said he has been symptom-free since April 8. Prosecutors say the U.S. Bureau of Prisons said Skelos will be approved for furlough and home confinement once his proposed residence has been approved by U.S. Probation Department authorities. Medical authorities at the prison have already cleared his release.

3rd day of Chol Hamoed 5780 We are living in troubled times, faced with the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic in our country and throughout the world. To our sorrow, our communities have seen thousands take ill, both young and old, and the hundreds of deaths, lo aleinu, from the pandemic. Medical direction as to how to deal with this pandemic has been evolving as new research and information develops. Leading experts believe it possible that someone who was sick with Coronavirus might still be able to infect others long after the person recovers. The top medical experts are unsure if one who is fully recovered develops immunity, or whether they might be at risk of repeated infection.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo took to morning TV shows Tuesday to push back against President Donald Trump’s claim of “total” authority to reopen the nation’s virus-stalled economy, noting that a president is not an absolute monarch. “We don’t have a king,” Cuomo said on NBC’s “Today. “We have a president. That was a big decision. We ran away from having a king, and George Washington was president, not King Washington. So the president doesn’t have total authority.” The Democratic governor, whose state has become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, was reacting to Trump’s assertion Monday that “when somebody is president of the United States, the authority is total.” “Nope,” Cuomo said.

Family and friends are in profound shock and sadness by the sudden petirah of R’ Mordy Weiner z”l, Mordechai Ziskind ben Meir Elchonon. The family just marked his 57th birthday this week, as he lay in the hospital with the dreaded coronavirus disease. Mordy was greatly beloved and cherished by family, friends, and all who were zoche to know him. He leaves behind his beloved daughters Hennie and Tova, his beloved mother Devorah, sisters Esther, Naomi, and Fraidel, as well as his cherished grandchildren. He was always the life of the party, putting a smile on the faces of young and old alike. He had a giant heart, and extended it to the care of the elderly and sick, who truly adored him. He drove countless sick to hospitals for treatments, and selflessly took care of their families.

In accordance with our daas Torah, Hagaon HaRav Yechezkel Roth shlita, aveilim should continue to sit separately, and nichum aveilim should continue to be by phone. However, Misaskim will be providing shiva chairs only, with the following guidelines. 1. All shiva chairs will need to be picked up Motzei Yom Tov between the hours of 9:15 PM and 11:00 PM, and brought back after shiva. 2. All neighborhoods will have a designated spot to pick up and drop off the shiva chairs, where representatives of aveilim will be able to pick up the shiva chairs. 3. If your neighborhood is not listed below, and you are in need of shiva chairs, please call the Misaskim hotline after Yom Tov at 718-854-4548. 4.

A dangerous virus has transformed New York as it has claimed the lives of 10,000 people, but one thing hasn’t changed: the contentious relationship between the state’s two most prominent politicians, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. A weekend dust-up over which of the two Democrats gets to say when New York City students can return to school was just the latest example of Cuomo tussling with de Blasio over who is in charge of the state’s and nation’s most populous city. De Blasio, who closed school buildings a month ago, announced Saturday that they wouldn’t reopen for the remainder of the school year, saying it was neither safe nor logistically possible.

New Jersey and five other states will work together to reopen their economies once the coronavirus outbreak begins to subside, Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday. It’s not clear yet when the region would begin to reopen, and Murphy stressed that the public health crisis first has to be under control before the states begin relaxing stay-at-home and other orders. “The house is still on fire. We still have to put the fire out, but we do have to begin putting in the pieces of the puzzle that we know we’re going to need … to make sure this doesn’t reignite,” Murphy said. Murphy, a Democrat, announced the regional cooperation effort on a conference call with fellow Democratic Govs.