Adams says young kids can take off their masks

From: POLITICO New York Playbook PM - Tuesday Mar 22,2022 08:25 pm

Mar 22, 2022

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Maybe the loudest voices really do dictate policy.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced today that the city will allow the parents of children ages 2 to 4 — kids old enough to wear a mask capably (at least in theory) but too young to qualify for a vaccine — to decide if they will wear face coverings in school or day care.

The decision comes as Omicron cases are spiking, though the subvariant BA.2, which is responsible for about 30 percent of cases citywide, seems to produce the symptoms that come with a winter head cold, rather than attacking the lungs. Yet scientists are still unsure about whether even a mild case of Covid, including from BA.2, can wreak havoc on the body later on, including a heightened risk for diabetes.

Adams’ new health commissioner, Ashwin Vasan, said on Friday that the city still was evaluating data to determine policies, adding that case counts are just one data point.

“I would love nothing more than to send my son to day care without a mask,” Vasan said. “We have very clear benchmarks of how we’re assessing risk, and we’ll keep reevaluating whether that mandate should stay in place, and right now we think it should.”

Four days later, Vasan backtracked, saying hospitalizations for children are relatively low, which "gives us comfort to do this now."

The mask mandate for children is the latest issue to play out for the Adams administration as it seeks to initiate a return to pre-pandemic life while the virus that killed 40,000 residents still finds new hosts to infect. It also aligns the city’s masking rules with the state’s policy. Gov. Kathy Hochul lifted the statewide mask mandate for schools and child care facilities on March 2.

Adams did not indicate whether he’ll pull back the private employer vaccine mandate, which could affect Major League Baseball players like Yankees star Aaron Judge, who is thought to be unvaccinated, or whether he will petition Albany to add the Covid-19 vaccine to the list of required immunizations for public school children.

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IT’S TUESDAY: Yeah, it only Tuesday, as The Onion reminds us, and we’ve now used up the one time each year we’re allowed to make this reference.

From the Capitol

LIMO CRASH FOLLOW-UP: Sen. Jim Tedisco (R-Glenville) said he has filed a Freedom of Information Law request with the state Inspector General’s office seeking “all materials regarding its investigative report on state malfeasance and the potential cover-up of the lack of oversight of the limo company that operated the vehicle” involved in a 2018 limousine crash in Schoharie that killed 20 people, several of whom were his constituents. The IG told him he can expect an answer on or about April 12. — Anna Gronewold

FROM CITY HALL

BAIL REFORM BY THE NUMBERS: City Comptroller Brad Lander released a report knocking down claims that bail reform is responsible for a spike in crime in the city, finding that defendants are no more likely to be arrested for a new crime after being released now than they were before the reforms took effect. In December, 2021, 4 percent of people free while awaiting trial were rearrested — compared to 5 percent in January, 2019, before bail reform took effect, according to data from Lander’s office. Both before and after bail reform, fewer than 1 percent of people released pretrial were arrested on a violent felony charge each month.

Under the bail reform law, judges must release people without requiring them to pay bail in most cases. Parts of the law were rolled back in 2020 to allow bail in more cases, and Adams is pushing for additional rollbacks, which recently gained Hochul’s support. “In a moment of real anxiety about public safety, the conversation on bail reform has become divorced from the data, which shows essentially no change in the share of people rearrested while released pretrial before and after the implementation of the 2019 bail reforms,” Lander said in a statement.

The comptroller’s report also found that the number of people required to pay bail has dropped sharply since the law was implemented — to 14,545 cases in 2021, down from 24,657 in 2019. However, in cases where bail was set, the average amount increased, to $38,866 from $19,162. The total amount imposed in bail also jumped, from $186 million in 2020 to $268 million in 2021.

When asked about the report, Adams said that even small numbers of people released to commit new crimes could contribute to violence. “I complain about every dangerous person that’s released. Every one. We don’t need dangerous people on our streets,” he said. — Erin Durkin

— BRENNAN CENTER ANALYSIS: “The Facts on Bail Reform and Crime Rates in New York State ” by Ames Grawert & Noah Kim: The nonpartisan law and policy institute concludes in a new report that current data does not support the idea that the 2019 bail reform laws caused New York City’s crime rate increases in 2020-2021.

— WATCH: Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin and staff in the Capitol dodge questions on Hochul’s proposed bail reform law changes, via New York Now’s Darrell Camp.

FROM THE DELEGATION

IDA RELIEF: U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge announced more than $187 million for New York City and $41 million for New York State from the disaster supplemental bill following Hurricane Ida, according to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The city and state can use the money for any Ida-related cost, recovery or project that would be related to that hurricane, he said.

“Amidst any disaster, like Ida, our entire New York delegation mobilizes to secure federal dollars that help New York City and the State respond and recover, which is what these dollars coming today will help us do,” Schumer said in a statement. “The [funds] to NYC come with ultimate flexibility that will allow the mayor and his team to allocate the funds where the need is greatest.” — Anna

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ON THE BEATS

HEALTH CARE: Adams made a crack at a press conference today in reference to a POLITICO report about his new health commissioner’s tenure at the agency prior to taking on the job as the city’s doctor. “You got more print than me this week,” Adams said to laughs as he ceded his spot at the podium to Vasan, who grunted in response. — Amanda Eisenberg

— Advocates behind “Fair Pay for Home Care” legislation flooded the state Capitol today as they ramp up their campaign to persuade Hochul and state lawmakers to include the measure — which would pay home health workers at least $22.50 an hour — in the final state budget. Assembly Health Committee Chairperson Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan) argued that the legislation is needed to bolster the home care workforce and provide care to New Yorkers who rely on such services. “The only way to resolve this problem is for the state to face up to its obligation to provide ‘fair pay for home care,’” he said at the afternoon rally. “That’s what we are fighting for in this year’s budget.”— Shannon Young

TRASH: The Sims Municipal Recycling Plant in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, has a new owner. Closed Loop Partners and the Partnership Fund for New York City have acquired the four Sims plants that operate in the New York area and Florida. The companies said the investment is “expected to accelerate the recovery of valuable commodities, including plastics, paper, metal and glass, diverting them from landfills and returning them to manufacturing supply chains.”

Closed Loop Partners was founded by Ron Gonen, who served as a deputy sanitation commissioner in the Bloomberg administration. Gonen is a staunch advocate for a circular economy in which industry leaders are more thoughtful in designing products that can be repurposed later on. We interviewed Gonen for our “Wasted Potential” series, where he made the case against expanding the bottle bill. The Partnership Fund is the investment arm of the Partnership for New York City, the nonprofit lead by Kathy Wylde that represents hundreds of business organizations.

Maria Gotsch, CEO of the Partnership Fund, said in a phone interview today that the move represents a chance to invest in good-paying manufacturing jobs and tackle the city’s waste crisis. “There’s an ability to deal with a big issue that New York City has — we produce a lot of waste — while creating local jobs in an industrial sector,” she said. Closed Loop is interested in adding new processing capacity for organics, textiles and electronics and modernizing the facility to improve recycling rates.

“Every time you recycle something you enable the city to avoid using our tax dollars to send materials to landfills,” Gonen said in an interview today. “That’s a big thing the landfill operators of the United States have done a great job tricking the public into thinking recycling somehow costs money or recycling is just something you do because you care about the environment.”

The city has a 20-year contract with Sims to process metal, glass and plastic. Vincent Gragnani, a spokesperson for the city sanitation department, said officials “look forward to continuing that relationship with the new ownership and continuing our efforts toward our Zero Waste goals.” — Danielle Muoio Dunn

ENERGY: A bill that would ban new cryptocurrency mining operations passed through the Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee today. The bill (A07389C) sponsored by Assemblymember Anna Kelles (D-Ithaca), would establish a three-year moratorium on Bitcoin mining operations that use fossil fuels.

The bill faced strong opposition from Republican members, who argued it would put New York behind the cryptocurrency industry nationwide. Kelles, however, said it would not “prevent the buying and selling of cryptocurrency in the state. We can still be the cryptocurrency capital of the world.”

While environmentalists hailed the vote, the bill’s future is uncertain. It is unclear whether it will pass the full state Legislature before the session ends in June. — Meghan Brink

AROUND NEW YORK

— A high school and middle school in Poughkeepsie have been remote-only since Monday because of a threat posted on social media.

— More than 70,000 New Yorkers have now died from Covid-19, according to data released by the governor’s office today.

— A new report shows that New York was ranked the second-worst state for doctors.

— Guilderland’s town board is considering lifting the ban of retail cannabis dispensaries.

— New York teens are among the country’s laziest, according to a report. Yeah, whatever.

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