New York City public schools will remain closed through the end of the academic year — at least according to Mayor Bill de Blasio, who announced the decision Saturday as a way of keeping the coronavirus pandemic in check.
The city’s 1.1 million school children and their parents had scarcely a moment to digest the momentous consequences of losing more than three months of classroom learning before Gov. Andrew Cuomo threw a wrench in things. The governor pronounced de Blasio’s declaration merely an “opinion,” saying the call is his to make and he hasn’t been made yet. “There has been no decision on schools,” Cuomo said, and would have to be coordinated with neighboring counties.
Advertisement
We’ll go out on a limb and say it seems quite unlikely that city schools will reopen this spring. Cuomo would have to first decide he wants them open, apparently against the advice of health experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci, and then compel a school system controlled by the mayor and administered by the city to open against the city’s will. But the clash between the two leaders leaves parents, already reeling from a crisis that has forced students to adapt to remote learning on the fly and deal with having their kids home all day, grappling with another source of uncertainty.
It might have been too much to hope that Cuomo and de Blasio, whose feuding over matters petty and momentous alike has gone on for years, would put their differences aside in the face of a deadly and life-altering pandemic. Last month, when de Blasio warned a shelter-in-place order might be coming, Cuomo shot him down — only to essentially issue such an order several days later. Before the blowup this weekend, the state had been stonewalling the city’s efforts to get data on Covid-19 cases and fatalities. On Saturday morning, the New York Times reports, de Blasio called Cuomo just a few minutes before making his public announcement; he didn’t get through and sent a text.
Despite Cuomo’s pushback, de Blasio is sticking to his decision to keep the schools shut down, calling it a “moral question” he will not budge on. “We had to protect our children, our parents, our families, our educators,” he said Sunday. “Schools have to remain closed for the remainder of the school year.”
IT’S MONDAY. Got tips, suggestions or thoughts? Let us know … By email: [email protected] and [email protected], or on Twitter: @erinmdurkin and @annagronewold
WHERE’S ANDREW? No available public schedule by press time.
WHERE’S BILL? Appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and PIX 11, holding a media availability on coronavirus, and appearing on NY1’s Inside City Hall.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “We should be able to figure out a way to sell cars,” — Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon, on restarting certain industries soon with proper social distancing
PHOTO OF THE DAY: Gov. Cuomo thanked a group of masked nurses through a window pane at an upstate nursing home on Easter morning.
NEW YORK CITY neighborhoods where people are living in the most cramped quarters have been a tinderbox for the spread of the coronavirus, according to a POLITICO analysis of health department data. In neighborhoods that have become virus hot spots in recent weeks — such as Corona in Queens, Borough Park in Brooklyn and Fordham in the Bronx — as many as 1 in 5 residents live in crowded apartments, generally defined by the city as more than one person per room. Among the 25 zip codes with the highest amount of cases, 16 were also among those with the highest rates of overcrowding, according to POLITICO’s analysis, which cross-referenced city health department data with census statistics. Elected officials and community leaders are raising alarms about the conditions and pushing the city to give space to isolate people who aren’t able to do so at home. POLITICO’s Janaki Chadha
— “The vulnerabilities that allowed the virus to devastate New York also mean that the city faces outsize risks of new infections if the government moves too hastily to restart the economy.”
“ON MARCH 24, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo appeared at the Jacob K. Javits Center in Manhattan and, as soldiers scrambled to transform it into a hospital, he offered the public a dire assessment. Sophisticated scientists, Mr. Cuomo said, had studied the coming coronavirus outbreak and their projections were alarming. Infections were doubling nearly every three days and the state would soon require an unthinkable expansion of its health care system. To stave off a catastrophe, New York might need up to 140,000 hospital beds and as many as 40,000 intensive care units with ventilators. ‘One of the forecasters said to me we were looking at a freight train coming across the country,’ Mr. Cuomo said. Two weeks later, however, with an unprecedented shutdown of public schools, countless businesses and most of outdoor life, New York has managed to avoid the apocalyptic vision that some of the forecasters predicted. The daily death toll has still been staggering, approaching 800 for a third straight day on Friday, and some hospitals continue to teeter on the brink of chaos. But the number of intensive care beds being used declined for the first time in the crisis, to 4,908, according to daily figures released on Friday. And the total number hospitalized with the virus, 18,569, was far lower than the darkest expectations.” New York Times’ Alan Feuer and Jesse McKinley
— New York City’s academic hospital systems are losing $350 million to $450 million a month each.
— The number of coronavirus cases in New York City has surpassed 100,000. The statewide death toll rose to 9,385 people as of Sunday.
THE CORONAVIRUS PREYS on vulnerabilities, and that has made New York City’s public housing system and its tenants unfortunate targets. The results have been deadly. As the virus sweeps through the roughly 174,000 apartments overseen by the New York City Housing Authority, it is threatening the economic picture of an agency just starting to find its fiscal footing and exacerbating inequalities that have long plagued low-income communities. Many NYCHA tenants have pre-existing medical conditions. Many are seniors or frontline workers who risk their health while on the job and then come back to apartments cramped with family members sheltering in place. Residents and officials interviewed by POLITICO said tenants are dying in their homes every day. “So many people have died this week,” said Lisa Kenner, resident association president at Van Dyke Houses in Brooklyn. “It’s enough.” Nearby Woodson Houses has lost six seniors. A few blocks away at Glenmore Plaza, the resident association president died in her apartment last Friday morning. She was not taken away until the next day, according to Kenner. She said 10 residents have died in their apartments at Van Dyke. In one case, the bodies of a mother and son were discovered in their unit only after the smell prompted neighbors to call city officials. POLITICO’s Joe Anuta
“THE CITY’S RESPONSE times to medical emergencies have surged to alarming levels in the last month with EMS workers arriving too late to save many dying patients, The Post has learned. Understaffed and overwhelmed with coronavirus cases, EMS response times have doubled in the Bronx — to an excruciating 24 minutes and 55 seconds in March from the month before. ‘Some people who could have been saved may die,’ an EMS insider said. Citywide, the average ambulance response time to the most life-threatening cases — cardiac arrest and choking — rose from 7:37 in February to 9:24 last month. Responses to all emergencies jumped from 11:27 to 18:07. An extra two minutes can mean the difference between life or death, EMS sources say.” New York Post’s Susan Edelman
— 911 operators are picking up a new call every 15.5 seconds.
— Some patients are refusing to be taken to hospitals for other ailments because of coronavirus fears.
NEW YORK CITY HOSPITALS are scrambling to find swabs needed to test for coronavirus, according to an alert sent out by one of the city’s top doctors Saturday. The shortage comes at the same time officials are talking about widespread testing as a necessary tool to reactivate the economy. Jamming a long swab into the throat or several inches into the nostril of a suspected Covid-19 patient is a common way to test for the disease in less-serious cases. However, hospitals around the city are increasingly unable to perform the simple screening for want of the Q-tip-like devices. “As the swab supply continues to decline, there is a real possibility hospitals will completely run out,” Demetre Daskalakis, a doctor and deputy commissioner at the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, wrote in an alert sent out to health care providers Saturday. “At this time, providers are reminded to only test hospitalized patients in order to preserve resources that are needed to diagnose and appropriately manage patients with more severe illness.” POLITICO’s Joe Anuta
— Cuomo called on President Donald Trump to invoke the Defense Production Act to increase production of antibody tests.
— The city will house 6,000 homeless single adults in hotel rooms, moving many from shelters to help stop the spread of coronavirus.
— Total deaths in New York City from all causes are at more than double the usual numbers.
— Burials at Hart Island, which have increased fivefold, bring with them many logistical challenges. Fort Totten may be used to store bodies.
— Garbage collections have fallen in certain parts of Manhattan, which could indicate residents there have fled the city.
— The outbreak is taking a heavy toll among 9/11 first responders and survivors, many of whom have lung ailments linked to the terrorist attacks.
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO said on Sunday that he will order employers who are still open and interacting with the public to provide workers with some sort of face covering. A forthcoming executive order will direct “employers to provide essential workers with a cloth or surgical facemask to their employees when they are interacting with the public. And they should provide those masks cost-free,” he said. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy recently issued a similar order. “I think Governor Murphy was right and I want to do that here in the state of New York,” Cuomo said. Notably, however, New Jersey’s order also required customers in places like supermarkets to wear masks. Cuomo — who has yet to be seen wearing a mask — did not give any indication that he will issue a similar mandate. POLITICO’s Bill Mahoney
“AT CROWN HEIGHTS Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in Brooklyn, workers said they had to convert a room into a makeshift morgue after more than 15 residents died of the coronavirus, and funeral homes could not handle all the bodies… Overall, 8,627 deaths in New York had been attributed to Covid-19 by Saturday, and the total for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut was over 10,000. The virus has perhaps been cruelest at nursing homes and other facilities for older people, where a combination of factors — an aging or frail population, chronic understaffing, shortages of protective gear and constant physical contact between workers and residents — has hastened its spread. In all, nearly 2,000 residents of nursing homes have died in the outbreak in the region, and thousands of other residents are sick.” New York Times’ Amy Julia Harris, John Leland and Tracey Tully
“ONE OF THE CRUELTIES of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, is that many patients may have just minutes to settle their affairs. With family members for the most part barred from visiting their loved ones, doctors often are left to facilitate such moments, full of emotion and tears. They are wrenching for physicians, too. … In one Manhattan emergency room, a woman recently stood by the secretary’s desk. A doctor handed her a phone. “I love you,” she said. “Things will be OK.” The words were played through the call bell in her husband’s isolation room, 20 feet away. He was in a medically induced coma, dying.” New York Times’ Joseph Goldstein and Benjamin Weiser
— The first influx of federal stimulus funds will do little to address growing coronavirus costs facing colleges and universities in the Capital Region.
— Former state Senate majority leader and convicted fraudster Dean Skelos is in quarantine in prison with coronavirus-like symptoms.
— The women’s suffrage centennial was going to be a big deal in New York, but the pandemic has put most of the celebrations on hold.
— A Long Beach attorney has filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the City of Long Beach’s closure of the city’s boardwalk in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
— Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro lost his father to Covid-19. Anthony Molinaro was 67.
#UpstateAmerica: An Eagle Scout from Ballston Spa came up with an idea to repurpose old Scouting neckerchiefs as personal protective equipment.
— City Council Speaker Corey Johnson proposed setting up a new fund to help families pay burial expenses.
— Manhattan business improvement districts and Borough President Gale Brewer want the city to turn a big chunk of Broadway over to pedestrians, and say they don’t need many cops to enforce it.
— Developers have paused the construction of 28 affordable housing sites across the city, even though “essential” construction had been allowed to continue.
— More than 1,500 inmates have been released from city jails.
— Seniors at a Manhattan complex received their meals and an apology from Mayor de Blasio after the city failed to send them promised food deliveries for weeks.
— Union officials have argued that layoffs and furloughs at Planned Parenthood of Greater New York are “hampering our ability to deliver essential services.”
— At least 40 city educators and retirees have died from the virus, according to a count by the United Federation of Teachers.
— Some city pols have continued to raise campaign cash during the pandemic.
— Several Albany lawmakers aren’t on board with the mayor’s idea to borrow emergency funds.
— De Blasio said he doesn’t buy the MTA’s claims that subway crowding is not a serious problem.
— The city pledged $25 million toward the emergency food network.
— Schools could take a hit from depleted sales tax revenues.
— City agencies have spent more than $687 million on goods and services to combat the outbreak.
— A traffic enforcement officer marked the NYPD’s 20th virus death.
— Anthony Causi, longtime New York Post sports photographer, has died at 48 from the coronavirus.
— Christians marked Easter Sunday without the traditional communion ceremony.
— Some golfers are sneaking onto closed courses to play a round.
— The flowers are blooming at vacant botanical gardens.
“THEY ARE CHILDREN who were caught crossing the southwest border without papers and sent to migrant shelters in New York when the coronavirus was silently spreading. Now the city is a pandemic epicenter in lockdown, but the Trump administration is pressing ahead with their deportation cases, forcing the children to fight in immigration court to stay. In two courthouses in the center of the besieged city, hearings for unaccompanied children—migrants who were apprehended without a parent — are speeding forward. The U.S. Department of Justice, which controls the immigration courts, has said it has no plan to suspend them. This week an 8-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a teenage single mother with an infant were preparing for imminent court dates and deadlines in New York, lawyers representing them said. With children trapped indoors in shelters and foster-care homes, many young migrants who don’t have lawyers may not even be aware of ongoing court cases that could quickly end with orders for them to be deported.” Marshall Project’s Julia Preston
“IN LATE July of 2015, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. traversed the state of New York with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, ending the day in Queens, where they announced plans to rebuild La Guardia Airport. On a flight with Mr. Cuomo aboard Air Force Two, Mr. Biden broached a delicate subject: his own interest in the presidency. Like most Democratic Party leaders, Mr. Cuomo was supporting Hillary Clinton, who had a wide lead in the polls. But unlike other top Democrats — including former President Barack Obama — Mr. Cuomo did not attempt to dissuade Mr. Biden from running. Instead, over what associates to both men described as a monthslong series of conversations, the governor offered a sympathetic ear to an indecisive elder statesman. Mr. Biden later recounted in a memoir that Mr. Cuomo urged him to make a decision he could be at peace with, alluding to the similarly anguished deliberations of his father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, decades earlier. “You’ll live with it the rest of your life,” Mr. Biden recalled the younger Mr. Cuomo saying.” New York Times’ Alexander Burns
“DESPITE AN ELEVATED national profile from his management of the coronavirus crisis and chatter in some political circles, the idea that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo would enter this year’s presidential campaign is little more than a fever dream…Mechanically, it is now next to impossible for the governor to enter the race. Even supporters of the idea acknowledge Mr. Biden would have to decline or become unable to accept the Democratic nomination—leading to a floor vote at the party convention—for Mr. Cuomo to have a shot. ‘It looks good on paper, except for the part about not having any delegates,’ Nathan Gonzales, a nonpartisan political analyst who is the editor and publisher of Inside Elections, said in an interview. Mr. Cuomo is disliked by activists in the party’s progressive wing, including many supporters of Mr. Sanders, and Mr. Gonzales wondered how he could bring them into the fold…And Mr. Cuomo himself has said, repeatedly, that he isn’t running, has no plans to run and wishes to remain in his current post. On Saturday, he called the speculation about replacing Mr. Biden ‘flattering’ but ‘irrelevant.’” Wall Street Journal’s Jimmy Vielkind
— The story of Omen, the downtown New York restaurant staple, as told by Patti Smith.
— NYPD cops helped deliver a baby on a Staten Island highway.
— A big court reorganization plan is on hold after being left out of the final state budget.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: CNN’s Nathaniel Meyersohn is 27 … Edelman SVPs Sujata Mitra and Kate Meissner … Amy Goodman is 63 … Kevin Warsh is 5-0 … John Gallagher, partner at Mercury … Alex Lam … Madeleine Levey Lambert … Morgan Hitzig … Mia Motley of SKDKnickerbocker … Chelsea Cole-Kelly … NBC’s Justice Gilpin-Green …
… (was Sunday): Woody Johnson, U.S. ambassador to the U.K., is 73 … Peter Scher, chairman of the mid-Atlantic region and global head of corporate responsibility at JPMorgan Chase … Rita Braver, national correspondent for “CBS Sunday Morning” … Tommy Schanzer … Iliana María Such … Patricia Duff … Marcelo Fontana …
… (was Saturday): Ed Skyler, Citi’s head of public affairs … Marc Ross, VP of global comms at Strategic Elements and founder of Caracal Global … MSNBC’s Raelyn Johnson … NBC’s Amanda Golden turned 27 … Rae Robinson Trotman, SVP at SKDKnickerbocker … Lule Rault … Holly Geffs … Alex Douglas … Adam Kramer … Bob Fois … Gil Gross … Jim Parenti
“AMID CALLS FOR New York City to freeze or suspend rents for the duration of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the city will move forward with determining the hikes (or lack thereof) its nearly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments. During a press conference, Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the Rent Guidelines Board’s review process, which determines annual rent increases for the 1 million stabilized apartments in the city, will proceed as normal, albeit remotely. However, he called on the RGB to enact a rent freeze instead of raising costs for New Yorkers.” Curbed’s Amy Plitt
“MORE THAN 90,000 people entered the lottery for one of the 925 below-market rent apartments at Hunter’s Point South Crossing and Commons. But these days, some of the lottery winners don’t feel very fortunate. When the pandemic hit single mom Jennifer Garcia, she lost all the work she did as a graphic designer. She is among the tenants who can’t pay their full rent. ‘It’s a little scary to be honest with you,’ Garcia told NY1. She wrote to the building’s owner, the Related Companies, explaining her plight and asking for a break. One tenant, who wants to remain anonymous, asked for a rent reduction. ‘The email that I got was, basically, ‘You can leave if you want,’ and that was essentially it,’ said the tenant. Related said she could break her lease and that ‘the leasing team would try to rent your apartment to another resident … You would only be rent responsible until the new resident moved in.’” NY1’s Michael Herzenberg
Madison Packer, the second-leading scorer in National Women’s Hockey League history, re-signed with the Metropolitan Riveters. The team captain will play her sixth season with the club in 2020-21.
The day ahead: Watch Packer score the put-away goal in this recent classic, Riveters against the Boston Pride.
- Erin Durkin @erinmdurkin
- Anna Gronewold @annagronewold
View all our political and policy newsletters
De Blasio orders schools to close for academic year but Cuomo cries foul — Overcrowded housing exacerbates health crisis — NYCHA residents dying at home
0 Comments: