PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — There are no immediate plans to further ease restrictions intended to help control the spread of the coronavirus in Rhode Island, Gov. Gina Raimondo said.
The Democratic governor in an interview with The Providence Journal published Thursday said if she had to decide now on moving to the fourth phase of the state’s reopening plan, “I would stay right where we are.”
The current phase 3 executive order is scheduled to expire Aug. 28.
“I’m not inclined at this moment to go further a phase, to go to Phase 4,” Raimondo said. “I think we are in a stable spot right now, and stability is the name of the game.”
Her priority now is reopening the state’s schools, she said.
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ARTS SCENE RAVAGED
Rhode Island’s arts sector lost more than 10,000 jobs and more than $436 million in sales from April until July as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a recently issued report by The Brookings Institution.
In Rhode Island and across the nation, arts venues and events were among the first to shut down and will be among the last to reopen in response to the pandemic, according to a statement Friday from Randall Rosenbaum, executive director of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts.
“This report documents how, in just four short months, the arts sector nationwide and in Rhode Island has literally ground to a halt,” he said. “Theaters and concert halls and museums were shuttered, and artists and cultural workers lost their livelihoods.”
