The Charles L. Brieant U.S. courthouse and federal building in White Plains, New York. Photo: Sean Wandzilak/ Shutterstock

Courts in the Mid-Hudson region and on Long Island will return to in-person operations this week, New York's court system said Tuesday.

The state's Unified Court System reported that courts in Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland and Westchester counties will get back to in-person operations starting Wednesday, which will be followed on Thursday by Sullivan and Ulster counties and Suffolk and Nassau counties on Friday.

The move comes as state officials have given the Mid-Hudson region the OK to reopen parts of its economy.

Construction, manufacturing and wholesale trade operations closed due to New York's stay-at-home measures were able to reopen Tuesday in the Mid-Hudson region.

Those companies are able to open back up under phase one of New York's gradual reopening plan. Phase two includes the reopening of "professional services," which is expected to allow law firms to return to in-office work.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Long Island is on track to enter the first phase on Wednesday. Officials will be monitoring coronavirus figures in all regions to watch out for any case clusters.

"You see a little movement, you pounce on it. Find out what it is, explore it and resolve it," he said.

Like many other businesses returning to their workplaces, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore stressed that in-person court operations are under a "new normal." There are COVID screenings, social distancing protocols, strict sanitizing standards and plexiglass partitions, she said.

New York continues to see a downturn overall in key coronavirus figures, such as the number of people who are intubated and the number of new COVID-19 hospitalizations. The state's daily death toll has also dipped below 100 three times in the last several days, according to state figures. 

It remains unclear when state officials will allow regions to move to phase two of the reopening scheme, which would allow law firms to open up their offices. 

The Cuomo administration has said two weeks would have to elapse before regions could move into phase two. But the governor shied away from that timeline over the weekend, saying that decision "is more a judgment call" on when COVID-19 figures have stabilized.

The state's budget director, Robert Mujica, added that regions can move to phase two if there's no uptick in the health metrics.