Demonstrators gathered peacefully Saturday at Memorial Park in Spring
Valley to march in honor of George Floyd, the man whose death last week
led to the arrest of a police officer in Minnesota, and set off massive
protests all over the country. Traffic was disrupted on Main Street in
Nyack by demonstrators, many holding signs that read “Black Lives Matter”
and “We Need Justice Now,” while Rockland’s Commissioner of Human Rights, Constance Frazier, took part in a protest in Nanuet on Route 59 at
Middletown Road. In a statement, Rockland County Executive Ed Day said he could “find no rationale at all” for the force used by the police against
Floyd and reminded everyone to give the justice system a chance to come to
a conclusion. In his daily coronavirus press briefing yesterday, New
York’s governor Andrew Cuomo said George Floyd must not have died in vain…
In COVID-19-related news, dentists across the state can reopen for
expanded services beginning today. The governor said the number of
hospitalizations is down, the net change in hospitalizations is down,
intubations are down and the number of new deaths, still dropping.
COVID-19 by the numbers now, the state has confirmed around 371,000 total cases and 23,900 deaths. In Rockland, the state says we’ve got 13,100
reported cases, and the Rockland Health Department confirms 631 fatalities
here in the county.