The number of new coronavirus hospitalizations are back to where they were when the PAUSE order kicked in - is the Hudson Valley ready to reopen?

The expiration of New York's PAUSE order expires in five days, and the reopening is expected to begin for some regions as early as Friday.

The state was split up into 10 regions, including the "Mid Hudson." The Mid-Hudson consists of seven counties that includes Westchester, Rockland, and Dutchess. 

Gov. Andrew Cuomo appeared to hint on Sunday that when it comes to the metrics needed to reopen, the Hudson Valley is not there yet.

"I think we can meet the benchmarks over the next week to two weeks, maybe sooner," said Westchester County Executive George Latimer. "We've got to look into the certain factors we can't control like available hospital rooms and then the things we can control, which is how we're doing testing and so forth."

Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro says his county is ready to reopen next week.

"I'm confident that some time during the week of May 18 or May 19, we would have achieved most of those benchmarks enabling us to restart some activities," he says.

Seven criteria are needed to reopen, including a decline in the number of hospitalizations and deaths - and certain testing and tracing capacities must be met.

Rockland County Executive Ed Day said "the current plan calls for these criteria to be met regionally before reopening, so Rockland's specific numbers will be included with the rest of the Mid-Hudson region which is made up of Westchester, Orange, Ulster, Dutchess, Putnam, and Sullivan counties."

The first phase of the reopening will include construction, manufacturing and select retail that can offer curbside pickup.