NYC Was Badly Unprepared For Pandemic, Comptroller Report Finds
New York City lacked a pandemic response plan before the coronavirus hit and was slow to respond once it did, a new investigation found.
Nick Garber, Patch Staff
NEW YORK, NY — New York City was badly unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic, relying on a years-old draft plan to dictate its response and lacking ways to count hospital beds or coordinate between agencies, according to a new report by the city comptroller.
The report by Comptroller Scott Stringer's office was released Wednesday following a yearlong investigation. But it remains incomplete, he said, because city agencies have refused to turn over key documents and witnesses.
Still, it provides a window into the city's scramble to contain the virus during the early months of 2020, when officials discovered that the only plan they had was a 2013 draft created by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
That plan was "not particularly useful," a high-level DOHMH official told investigators, because it was so incomplete, lacking plans for supply chains, public health messaging and other "major policy issues."
Other shortcomings included an inability to count the number of open hospital beds and pieces of personal protective equipment at a given moment, as well as an adequate supply of N95 masks. (The city's N95 stockpile, it turned out, had expired years earlier.)