Concerns about fireworks fans jammed shoulder-to-shoulder prompted Mayor Mike Duggan to say there's no way Detroit will hold its annual downtown fireworks festival as scheduled.

The event — which is slated for June 22 — annually attracts hundreds of thousands of people downtown, with many packing into Hart Plaza and lining the riverfront while thousands more watch from boats in the Detroit River.

"There’s no way that anybody’s going to allow crowds — certainly I’m not going to allow crowds of that size on the original schedule," Duggan said at Eastern Market, where he holds his daily news briefing on the city's efforts to cope with the coronavirus crisis.

Most of the discussion centered on an update on the city's effort to administer coronavirus tests to residents and workers in nursing homes and the mayor's plan to get city workers who fix potholes and cut grass in parks back to work. During the question period that follows the mayor's talking points, someone asked about the status of the city's annual fireworks extravaganza, which draws people from throughout southeastern Michigan.

"Could it be done later in the summer or the fall?" Duggan asked, rhetorically. "We haven’t focused on that yet. But certainly it won’t be on the regular schedule"

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Earlier in the briefing, Duggan announced a new effort to get some city workers back on the job to patch roads and before Detroit's parks revert to prairies.

"If you’ve been driving and you hit a pothole in Detroit, I know we’re behind, but we’re going to get folks back as soon as we can safely bring them back, and I don’t think it will be too far away," Duggan said.

The mayor said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's executive order sending most workers home did not apply to those city employees. He said he sent them home because "I did not want to bring folks in until I was confident we have the absolutely appropriate medical protocols in place."

The city began taking the temperature of police and firefighters last month. A fever, as well as a dry cough and difficulty breathing, are leading symptoms of coronavirus infection. In recent weeks, the city added tests that take about 15 minutes to indicate whether someone is infected. Testing was expanded to bus drivers and other city workers, who are also being tested at the city's drive-thru site at the state fairgrounds. And, soon, the tests will be administered to what the mayor called "critical infrastructure employees."

“Those who are repairing the potholes in our roads, those who are fixing the water and sewer system, those who cut the grass in our parks, clean up the illegal dump sites, we are going to start to make plans to bring our critical infrastructure staff back," Duggan said, adding, "Everybody will have to be tested and test negative before we bring them back.”

The mayor also said 200 companies with 10,000 employees in essential workplaces like banks, grocery stores and restaurants, have signed up to have their workers tested at the city's drive-thru site. Duggan emphasized that the employers must ask the city to approve their workers for tests, and that employees must make an appointment before getting tested at the fairgrounds. No one without an appointment will be tested. For more information on scheduling an appointment, call 313-230-0505 between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m.

In other news, Duggan praised police for an average response time that he said is 9 minutes and 30 seconds.

“I think that’s the lowest response time we’ve had in many, many, years," the mayor said. "Twelve minutes was the goal that we were shooting for a year ago.”

You can watch the replay of the mayor's briefing here.