Coronavirus in N.Y.C.: Latest Updates

Weather: Afternoon thunderstorms with strong gusts. High around 60.

Alternate-side parking: Suspended through April 28. Meters are in effect.

Virus deaths fell below 500 for the first time since April 2.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Monday that an additional 478 people had died of the coronavirus in New York State, the lowest single-day toll in more than two weeks.

After saying in recent days that the outbreak appeared to have reached or passed a peak in the state, Mr. Cuomo said the authorities were now trying to ascertain how gradual the decrease in infection might be in the weeks to come.

“The question is, how long is the descent, and how steep is the descent?” he said. “Nobody knows. Just as nobody knew how long the ascent was, nobody can tell you how long the descent is.”

The governor’s office confirmed that Mr. Cuomo was scheduled to meet with President Trump at the White House on Tuesday. Among the things they were expected to discuss were virus testing and the country’s capacity for conducting such testing.

State and hospitals failed to protect nurses, union says in lawsuits.

New York’s largest nurses’ union, in three lawsuits filed on Monday, accused the state Health Department and two hospital systems of failing to equip its members with adequate protective gear and of exposing them to unsafe working conditions amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The lawsuits, filed in state and federal court in New York, were one of the largest collective legal actions taken against hospitals since the pandemic began. In addition to the state Health Department, the defendants were Montefiore Medical Center and Westchester Medical Center.

The union, the New York State Nurses Association, said that at least eight nurses had died in New York State after contracting the virus at work, and at least 84 had been hospitalized. The union has more than 42,000 members.

In court papers, nurses described receiving one N95 mask to use for a week and being denied virus testing at their own hospitals. Some nurses who tested positive for the virus were required to return to work after seven days, half the 14-day quarantine period recommended by health officials, the union said.

Ambulance calls in N.Y.C. have dropped sharply.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Monday that there were 3,485 medical-emergency calls to 911 on Saturday, many fewer than on an average day in 2019, before the coronavirus outbreak began.

Calls have fallen more than 50 percent since a peak in late March, when there were more than 7,000 calls in a single day, more than on Sept. 11, 2001.

But with the city reporting 363 new deaths on Sunday, Mr. de Blasio warned that it was far too soon to lift lockdown restrictions on business and public life in New York.

In that vein, he announced that all large gatherings and events for June, including the Puerto Rican Day Parade and the Pride March, had been canceled. The two events draw millions of people to the city’s streets each summer.

The annual festival — founded and run by the Public Theater, and staged as the sun sets in an open-air amphitheater surrounded by trees — is just too big to pull together at a time when no one knows when large gatherings will be permitted again.

Shakespeare in the Park has been performed for free at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater since 1962. It was to include two shows this season: a new production of “Richard II,” directed by Saheem Ali; followed by a musical adaptation of “As You Like It,” directed by Laurie Woolery.

But the Public does have several digital initiatives, including a collaboration with regional theaters to commission mini-plays that anyone can read aloud at home; a weekly online Shakespeare challenge; streams of Joe’s Pub performances; and an opportunity to watch the Pulitzer-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks at work.

It’s Tuesday — all the world’s a stage.

Metropolitan Diary: Ugly couch

Dear Diary:

I moved into an apartment and inherited an ugly mustard-color mohair couch that the roommate who had lived there before me left behind. I hated it.

Some years later, curious about a noise in the hallway of my fourth-floor walk-up, I opened the door to find two delivery men trying to maneuver my neighbors’ old sleeper sofa toward the stairs.

My neighbors, it turned out, had bought a new couch. My boyfriend and I asked if we could buy the old one.

Sure, my neighbors said, for $15 — the amount of the tip the delivery men were going to get for taking the couch downstairs. For that sum, they would take mine to the curb instead.

The delivery men suggested I put a sign on my couch saying it was for sale and that anyone interested should ring my apartment.

That’s what we did. And five minutes later, the doorbell rang. It was a mother and her son who were looking for a couch to buy.

They paid us $15, and the ugly couch was happily walked down the street to a new home.

— Mindy Hermann