PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island has 17 new positive coronavirus cases, for a total of 83, state officials said on Sunday.
“We are not surprised or alarmed” by the bigger jump is positive test results, said Gov. Gina M. Raimondo. “As a general rule we are not panicking. It is a time to plan and work, not panic.”
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The governor said she’ll be signing an executive order requiring all recreation and entertainment facilities to close in-person operations beginning at 5 p.m. on Monday. This includes theaters, barber shops and beauty salons.
The added restrictions on businesses, she said, are to drive home the point that Rhode Islanders have to get more serious about limiting gatherings to no more than 10 people to help stop the spread of the virus.
“People will die, our loved ones will die if we don’t get a little more serious … about heeding these directives,” she said, which include a ban on in-person dining and directives that people who can work from home do so.
Raimondo said she speaks daily to businesses about the effects of the restrictions on their operations and has sympathy for the challenges they face.
“I have my eye on getting our economy open as soon as possible,” she said. “In the meantime, this will be very difficult.” She added the state is looking into options to set up its own loan fund to help small businesses, to go with one available through the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Raimondo said that despite the state seeing its biggest single one-day jump in positive cases of the coronavirus, Rhode Island is still better off than many other states.
“Rhode Island is in relatively good shape … we’re still a half-step ahead of this virus,” she said.
But she acknowledged that it is “very likely” hospitals in the state will get overrun, as is occurring in some other states. The state is planning for that possibility, she said, by preparing for “surge capacity for hospital beds, quarantines and for health care workers.”
The Army Corps of Engineers will be sending a small group to Rhode Island this coming week to help with that planning, she said.
“At this moment there is no problem with a shortage of hospital beds or [health care] workers,” she said. But “this thing changes by the day.”
“Don’t panic, get prepared. Assume the worst,” she said, summing up the state’s approach to the growing crisis.
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