STOPS BUGGIN’ OUT OVER SCHOOL: BILL
Riles pols by saying most will get over COVID quickly
Mayor de Blasio appeared to downplay the health risks posed by coronavirus on Monday, a week ahead of the scheduled start of in-person classes for city students.
“Some students will test positive at some point in the year, and they’ll go home for two weeks and then they’ll come back and they’ll complete the school year,” he said at a press conference.
“We have to remember that for the very small percentage of people who test positive for the coronavirus, it is a very temporary reality,” Hizzoner continued.
While most COVID patients recover within several weeks, the novel virus has the potential to cause serious lung and heart damage, which may create long-term effects. It can also, of course, be deadly — the city had suffered 23,750 deaths as of Saturday, according to the Health Department.
“The mayor is trying to normalize an abnormal and outrageous and preventable situation,” City Councilman Mark Treyger (D-Brooklyn), chairman of the Education Committee, told the Daily News.
“They are trying to downplay the seriousness of this virus to try to advance some sort of optics or some sort of a mirage that everything is fine in New York,” added, Treyger, who previously called on the city to delay the start of in-person classes.
The mayor’s office rejected the criticism.
“This is an inaccurate summary of the warning the mayor was giving the city,” de Blasio spokesman Bill Neidhardt said in a statement.
“New York City knows the dangers posed by COVID, which is why we announced the new COVID Situation Room,” he added. “Any accusation of downplaying during this announcement doesn’t make sense.”
During the press conference, Hizzoner announced a new “COVID Response Situation Room” that will field reports of positive cases from school administrators, work to confirm them with the Department of Health and get individuals isolated as needed. It will also coordinate “contact tracing” to determine who may have come into contact with positive cases.
The effort entails “a number of agencies working together to make sure that whenever there is a positive test, there’s immediate answers,” de Blasio said.
The Health Department and the city’s Test & Trace Corps are joining the Education Department in the effort.
While de Blasio promised “daily public reporting” of COVID cases at schools, it was not immediately clear how staff, students and parents would be informed if a case is confirmed at their building.
Hizzoner also touted 22 testing sites at city-run hospitals and other facilities where Education Department employees and students can get free COVID tests. He promised results within one to two days.
Recent testing of 16,982 school-based staff found 0.32%, or 55 people, were COVID-positive, according
to de Blasio. Almost all those tested — 98% — got their results back within 48 hours, he added.
“That tells us how much all the efforts to fight back this disease are working, and it tells us that the folks who work in our school system have been really careful and diligent and so few have ended up with a positive case,” the mayor said.
Earlier in the press conference, de Blasio also appeared to play down the impact of COVID on school staff.
“Some people will test positive, and those folks will immediately get support. They’ll be helped to get home to safely separate,” he said.
“And after two weeks, those professionals will come back to work. And they’ll complete the entire school year. The same will happen with some students.”
Councilman Mark Levine (D-Manhattan) took exception with that characterization.
“This virus kills people and it can lead to long-term debilitating illness even for patients who are otherwise young and healthy,” said Levine, chairman of the Health Committee.
“So we have to take every single case seriously and we have to continue to message to the public that every case must be taken seriously and that the risks of this virus are still all too real.”
Treyger questioned why the “Situation Room” was being launched after the Sept. 8 return of teachers to schools, where they’ve been readying for the academic year.
“I reject this disgusting attempt to normalize a completely abnormal situation and the fact that he is only setting up a so-called ‘Situation Room’ after the fact that school staff has been already told to report is nothing short of outrageous,” he said.