Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said Wednesday that Boston reported its first day without new deaths from COVID-19 since early March when no new deaths were reported on Monday.
"Definitely we're seeing a gradual decrease and we're seeing some positive news out of our hospitals. A decrease in emergency rooms for COVID as well," he said. "So that's all good signs. But again, we're pretty much all shut down right now. My concern is, as we watch this decrease, if we open up do we see a little bit of a spike?"
As small businesses and customers anxiously wait to find out when stores can re-open, Walsh said he doesn't anticipate restaurants being open by next week, but he said the city is looking at ways to expand dining areas for customers when restaurants are reopened, and those will be "fast-tracked."
"I think we're gonna move pretty quickly on it," he said.
Still, he said he supports "a cautious, phased-in approach" to re-opening the state.
Echoing comments he made on WGBH's Morning Edition, Walsh said that re-opening will be centered around data.
"This must be a gradual, phased-in approach that depends on testing and hospital metrics reaching certain benchmarks and continuing to move in the right direction," he said. "I want to warn people if we open to soon or we let down our guard, we can get spikes in cases faster. Then we would have to roll back all of the work that we're doing now in opening and essentially starting over."
Walsh also said the city is working with the state to figure out ways to save some portion of the city's summer camps and other programs for kids.
He also said he's committed to implementing some portion of city's summer jobs program, which in prior years has provided 11,000 summer jobs for disadvantaged youth.
"Many of our kids that work in the summer, they provide extra money for their families, they put food on the table. They're saving for college," he said. "So we are going to have some sort of summer program here in the city. We're identifying where the gaps are. Not quite sure what they're gonna do yet, the kids, but we are gonna be doing some stuff."
