'We are in a bad place:' Raimondo to announce new COVID restrictions

PROVIDENCE – Declaring that “we are in a bad place” with the COVID-19 pandemic midway through this autumn of 2020, Gov. Gina Raimondo on Wednesday said Rhode Island faces the realistic possibility of throttling back the state’s economic and lifestyle reopening from the current phase three to the more restrictive phase two “in a week or two.”

In hopes of avoiding that, Raimondo during her weekly news conference at Veterans Memorial Auditorium urged residents to redouble their efforts to wear masks indoors and out, practice distancing, and limit social gatherings of any kind to immediate family and “closed circles” of others, notably co-workers.

With coronavirus statistics continuing to confirm what she described as “a second wave” similar to what most other states and many foreign nations are also experiencing, Raimondo sounded an alarm about renewed pressures on Rhode Island’s healthcare systems, warning that the state could reach hospital capacity in four to five weeks according to the state's current models if case trends continue.

And that raises the specter of possibly having to open field hospitals that were established but never used during the first wave, last spring.

Read more: https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/2020/10/28/raimondo-unveil-more-restrictions-ri-hospitals-could-hit-capacity/6054427002/