De Blasio tells NYC George Floyd protesters to ‘stay home’

Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday it is time for protesters taking to the streets over the police-involved death of George Floyd to “stay home” as he warned that there could be a spike in coronavirus infections.

“You’ve made your point. It’s time to stay home,” de Blasio said during his daily City Hall press briefing regarding the thousands of protesters and many looters who have flooded Big Apple streets for days.

“People have a right to protest freely, but there is a line,” the mayor said, as he explained that “there’s a real danger this could” further spread the deadly bug “when we were starting to beat it back profoundly.”

Demonstrators have inundated the streets of New York City over the past three days — sometimes turning violent and clashing with police — over the May 25 Minneapolis death of Floyd, who was black, at the hands of a white cop.

“This is just a horribly complex situation,” said de Blasio. “We’ve never dealt with anything like this.”

The Big Apple has been in a coronavirus-induced shutdown for more than two months and remains seven days away from entering phase one of the state’s four-phase reopening plan.

“The safest thing at this point is for people to stay home,” said the mayor. “We don’t want people out there where they could spread this disease, where they could catch this disease.”

Commenting on the protests, which Hizzoner has characterized as overall “peaceful,” he said, “This moment is the outpouring of such pain and suffering.

“These things are happening outdoors, which, thank God, is better than it happening indoors,” the mayor said of the demonstrations amid the virus.

Meanwhile, speaking during his own press conference Monday in Manhattan, Gov. Andrew Cuomo echoed some of those concerns about the potential impact the protests could have on the spread of coronavirus.

“We don’t even know the consequence of the COVID virus of those mass gatherings. We don’t even know. We won’t know possibly for weeks. How many super spreaders were in that crowd?” Cuomo asked. “How many young people went home and kissed their mother hello … and spread a virus?”

Cuomo continued, “We still have to be smart and at the same time we have a fundamental issue, which is we just spent 93 days limiting behavior, closing down, no school, no business, thousands of small businesses destroyed. People who have lost their jobs, people who wiped out their savings and now, mass gatherings with thousands of people in close proximity. One week before we’re gonna open in New York City?

“What sense does that make?” the governor asked.

“Took us 93 days to get here,” Cuomo said, referring to New York’s progress when it comes to the coronavirus crisis, including its steep decline in COVID-19-related hospitalizations, intubations and deaths. “Is this smart?”