“I have to say to the Orthodox community tomorrow, if you’re not willing to live with these rules, then I’m going to close the synagogues,” said Governor Andrew Cuomo in a press briefing on Monday. He prioritized schools, religious gatherings, public spaces, and finally businesses as causes for COVID-19 spread in a score of downstate hotspots.

On Sunday, Governor Andrew Cuomo said of schools in COVID-19 hotspots — in Mid-Hudson and New York City — “If the localities do not do testing immediately in the schools in those areas, the state will close them immediately.” The New York State Association of Counties pushed back, saying that running school COVID-19 tests is beyond counties’ capacities, and calling on the state to organize and fund such testing.

“There could be a number of explanations for this,”Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy said of a spike in COVID-19 for 10- to 19-year-olds, “but with many college campuses still operating and many children going back to school for in-person lessons, we need to continue to monitor this troubling trend and ensure parents are able to get their children tested.”

Among the nearly 1.3 million net jobs that New York State lost from March through August, more than 320,000 were in hotels and food services. Workers in food and accommodation services are disproportionately likely to be Black or Hispanic, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Retail trade, another sector with comparatively low wages, lost 93,000 jobs, one in every 10 of its previous total.

The governor is cracking down on enforcement at COVID-19 hotspots while sending a care package to the White House.

A new smartphone app promoted by New York State is designed to let users know if they’ve come within six feet of someone infected with COVID-19.

On Tuesday morning, as Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy announced 11 new cases of COVID-19 — six of them related to the University at Albany — he noted a local spike in cases for teenagers and cited a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.