Nassau C.E. details tennis guidelines, announces Memorial Day car parade

Residents were already swinging their rackets on the tennis courts at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow on Friday morning when Nassau County Executive Laura Curran detailed the guidelines by which athletes must abide.

Nassau officially reopened its tennis courts on May 15 amid Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s announcement earlier this week permitting the reopening of certain low-risk business and recreational activities.

Nassau County is following the guidelines of the U.S. Tennis Association. Players could only play singles, or one-on-one, as opposed to doubles. There must be one empty court separating players’ matches. And players must bring their own tennis balls.

“Everyone is doing a great job with golf and I know our residents are smart and they will continue to do a great job on tennis,” Curran said, referring to the reopening of golf courses.

The announcement also came as Long Island fulfilled five of seven metrics needed to launch Phase One of reopening. Five of the state’s 10 regions began Phase One on Friday, which includes construction, manufacturing, curbside retail, wholesale trade, agriculture, forestry and fishing.

Long Island most recently met its fifth benchmark, as hospitals now have more than 30 percent of their beds available. Curran said that Long Island had long been “right at the razor’s edge” of meeting such a requirement until reaching it Friday morning.

Now, Long Island must see a 14-day decline in hospital deaths and fewer than two new hospitalizations per every 100,000 people. “Despite our overall downward trends, if we get a one-day increase the clock stops and we have to start over,” Curran said of the former requirement.

On Friday, county hospitalizations were down 35 percent at 677, the number of patients on ventilators was down 14 percent to 197 and there were 121 confirmed new cases bringing the total to 38,864. The county also had 11 new reported deaths.

Curran also announced the county’s plans for Memorial Day weekend amid Gov. Cuomo’s announcement that the state would allow beaches to open at 50 percent capacity starting on May 22.

“This is very exciting,” Curran said. “We live on an island. We love our beaches and it’s one of the reasons many of us chose to live here.”

Curran announced that the county-owned Nickerson Beach in Lido Beach would be open and monitored by lifeguards.

“But we have to remember what Memorial Day is about,” Curran added. “Yes it’s about starting summer, but its about honoring the people who lost their lives protecting our freedoms.”

The county will also be holding a car parade on May 25 starting at Nassau Coliseum and leading to the Veteran’s Memorial at Eisenhower Park, where there will be a short ceremony streamed live on Facebook.