New Yorkers are in for one bummer of a summer thanks to the coronavirus, as public pools will stay closed, city beaches are likely headed for the same fate and parades, too, may be scrapped.
“Every one of us would love to have our summer — our some part of our summer,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a conference call with reporters Thursday.
“But keep expectations low for now.”
Hizzoner first announced that pools wouldn’t open in 2020.
The move was described by de Blasio as equal parts social-distancing precaution and cost-saving measure, sufficient to save the city about $12 million as it stares down a 10-digit budget crunch.
If hitting the beach was Plan B, New Yorkers had better hatch Plan C, as Hizzoner said surf and sand would likely stay off-limits as well.
“Imagine Coney Island in the middle of summer, hundreds of thousands of people packed tightly together,” he said. “I don’t see that happening anytime soon. It’s not safe.”
Sources told The Post that other warm-weather traditions such as the Israeli Day Parade, Puerto Rican Day Parade and Pride March — which would be marking its 50th anniversary this year — were also on the bubble.
City Hall declined to look ahead to June, when each of those events is scheduled, but did put the kibosh on all gatherings requiring public permits through next month.
“The city is canceling all permitted events in May,” mayoral spokeswoman Olivia Lapeyrolerie said. “We are in the process of reviewing June events and will be engaging with key stakeholders.
“A decision on June permitting will be announced later in the week.”
But sources said that even further-off events, including Fourth of July fireworks displays and Brooklyn’s West Indian Day Parade, held on Labor Day weekend, were very much in flux.
Organizers for the events did not respond to requests for comment.
The sobering look ahead came as de Blasio said New York City remained “far from out of the woods” in containing the coronavirus.
The city’s death toll — including confirmed cases of infection as well as untested but “probable” cases — rose on Thursday to 11,477. The number of diagnoses hit 117,565.
The state, meanwhile, counted 222,284 confirmed cases and 12,192 deaths as of Thursday, although Albany does not include “probable” cases in its totals.
“We should never underestimate this disease,” de Blasio said, noting that overall hospitalizations, ICU admissions and the percentage of people who test positive also remained on the rise as of the most recent accounting.
“This is not what we’re looking for, but we know we’re gonna do this stage by stage, step by step, and it just reminds us that we have to stick to it,” he added.
Even as hospitalizations rose, de Blasio announced that 11,000 city hotel rooms would soon be given over to New Yorkers who need space to quarantine.
The rooms will be reserved for coronavirus patients who are well enough that they don’t need to be in hospitals but can’t yet go home due to risk of spreading the disease further.
They will hold “people who need a place because of the reality of their living circumstances,” the mayor said, citing largely poor patients living in cramped, multigenerational households where the bug could spread like wildfire.
Meanwhile, one public institution is clearing out: jails.
“The jail population is now under 4,000 inmates,” de Blasio said. “That is the lowest in 74 years, since 1946, the year after World War II ended.”
Since early March, city officials have released more than 1,400 inmates who were vulnerable to contracting the coronavirus as well as those who were deemed low-risk for reoffending or had only short periods left on their sentences.
In addition to sparing those inmates from possible infection on the inside, the move allows more room for social distancing among those who remain in custody, de Blasio said.
As with public pools, the city found room to save some coin in the jail system.
The mayor on Thursday announced more than $250 million in cuts to the city’s Department of Correction in the next few years.
The savings include more than $6 million to train new correction officers and to provide support services, both of which are now less necessary because of the reduced jail population.
Additional reporting by Rich Calder, Nolan Hicks and Bernadette Hogan