Hochul’s ‘you do you’ guidance ending mask mandate rankles some disabled New Yorkers

 BY STEPHEN NESSEN

PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 15, 2022 

 

MODIFIED SEPTEMBER 15, 2022 

  

265 COMMENTS

Cara Liebowitz said she was "horrified" by Gov. Hochul's decision to drop the mask mandate.

STEPHEN NESSEN

Waiting in a motorized wheelchair for a subway in Flatbush, Brooklyn, Cara Liebowitz said she had one feeling when Gov. Kathy Hochul dropped the mask mandate on public transportation and shared a cheeky MTA poster with new guidance that stated “you do you.”

“I was honestly horrified,” Liebowitz recalled.

The MTA poster reads “masks are encouraged, but optional.” It depicts four figures, with one wearing a mask only over its nose. “Let’s respect each other’s choices,” the poster continues.

The MTA's poster on the latest mask guidance.

MTA

The poster, which will be at some 10,000 MTA locations, drew some laughs on Twitter. But Liebowitz, who has cerebral palsy, asthma, and is at high risk of COVID-19 complications, wasn’t a fan of the joke.

“Your decision could seriously disable or kill somebody from COVID,” she said. “People are still dying from COVID and getting long COVID.”

Health experts, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, still recommend that people wear masks on transit. People with weakened immune systems and senior citizens could also be put at risk by the new guidance. Johns Hopkins University estimates about one in 16 U.S. adults is immunocompromised.

Hochul’s decision to drop the mandate came despite pleas from the Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled to keep it in place, said Joe Rappaport, the group’s executive director. He said his nonprofit had met with the state Health Department, the MTA, and the governor’s office prior to Hochul’s announcement last week.

“The MTA told me, 'well the [health] commissioner endorsed this, so what’s the problem?'” Rappaport said. “And obviously that’s ridiculous, this was a political decision, not a decision that protects the health of transit riders.”

But MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said he’s just following the latest guidance of health experts at the state and federal level and it has nothing to do with politics.

“The epidemiologists and the health professionals have given their blessing to going to mask optional,” Lieber said, speaking at a press conference shortly after the governor announced the mandate was over.

The CDC still recommends wearing a mask on public transit.

STEPHEN NESSEN

Lieber, for his part, said he’ll still mask up. On the other hand, Richard Davey, head of New York City Transit, said he looked forward to not wearing a mask.

State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett agreed with dropping the mandate, but said the public should keep an eye on the number of COVID cases.

“We urge people to pay attention to their community level,” she said at the governor’s announcement.

The MTA was one of the last public transit agencies in the country to drop its mask mandate. A Florida judge ruled in April that the CDC had overstepped its authority by requiring masks on mass transit. San Francisco's BART system requires that masks be worn until Oct. 1, when it’s expected to drop the mandate. That leaves just Oakland, California’s ACTransit and Milwaukee, Wisconsin's MCTS with mask mandates, according to research compiled by the MTA.

London dropped its mask mandate on Transport for London last February, but mass transit systems in Spain and Japan still require face coverings.

Some experts believe if there’s another surge in cases during the winter, it could be harder to get the public to mask up again.

“You said, ‘you do you,’ or you said ‘it doesn’t really matter,’ so it’s not really looking at the long-term effects,” said Bruce Y. Lee, a professor at CUNY’s School of Public Health.

Previous mask guidance from the MTA.

MTA

But Jay Van Bavel, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at NYU, doubted the poster would have any significant effect on straphanger behavior.

“My guess is that it isn’t going to matter much what they do in these ads,” Van Bavel said. “A lot of little nudges tend to not be effective in changing people’s behavior, especially as the pandemic has gone on, people tend to become more entrenched in some of their practices and beliefs around it.”

People who use the MTA’s Access-a-Ride program, a van or car service that MTA is legally mandated to provide because the subways aren’t fully accessible, feel particularly vulnerable now. Many of the customers are elderly or have a disability that puts them at high risk for COVID-19 complications and worry being in a vehicle with an unmasked driver could expose them to the virus.

“This truly makes me feel like the city and state don’t care about disabled lives. Not all of us can simply stay home,” said Eman Rimawi-Doster, the Access-A-Ride Campaign coordinator and organizer with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. “Wearing a mask hurts no one. And I’m going to keep doing it because I care about my neighbors and also myself. I wish our government showed the same care.”

 The Big Ugly is actually N.Y.’s broken politics

By HARRY SIEGEL

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |

APR 02, 2022 AT 5:00 PM

Albany’s Big Ugly, where all the difficult votes get hidden inside of the budget and sweetened by new spending, is officially late as of Friday, as the political conversation here feels increasingly unhinged from reality.

New York’s motto is “Excelsior” (Latin for “higher”), and the high-stakes game of chicken between different factions of the Democratic Party that dominates politics here is about how much more to spend and on what.

But the state is in a damn deep hole, though you’d never know it listening to the pols whistling past the graveyard, buoyed by billions in federal aid that will never come again plus an unexpected tax haul from the tech companies whose valuations exploded during the pandemic in large part because of how they’ve made it viable for white-collar workers to be productive without having to live or commute into places like Manhattan, the density-fueled economic engine of the city and the state.

You can feel the heavy thumb on the scale when the same progressive lawmakers who insist, correctly, that bail reform isn’t driving the steep rise in crime — with shootings up more than 100% in New York City since 2019, just before various criminal justice reforms took effect and the coronavirus landed here, and the seven major crime categories up 45% so far this year from last year — keep repeating that the pandemic is the reason violent crime is up across the country.

Good luck, everyone!

From left, New York Sate Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D-Bronx, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, and State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins. (AP)

The same pols who favor more government intervention and spending as the solution to every other social ill, insist that government is powerless to do anything about violent crime in the short-term and that giving more discretion to cops and courts would only make things worse for the victims of the criminal justice system.

As to the victims of criminals, they’ll have to wait until a generation of spending on root causes hopefully bears fruit.

These aren’t popular positions. A Siena poll shows just 30% of New Yorkers favor the bail reform law now, down from 55% when it passed. Sixty-four percent say it’s resulted in an increase in crime, and a staggering 82%, including 79% of Democrats, think judges should have more discretion, which is what the law largely took away, to set bail.

Those numbers haven’t been enough so far to sway the “will of the caucus,” though they did seem to push Gov. Hochul, who abruptly went from suggesting she wouldn’t revisit the 2019 criminal justice reforms without “data” showing the need to do so to offering a 10-point plan to do just that.

That’s the most visible part of the reality distortion field surrounding New York’s politics, but it’s hardly the whole thing. While other cities have rebounded, New York City is down nearly 300,000 jobs from when the pandemic began and the city’s unemployment rate has been stuck at nearly double the national average.

And people left along with jobs. Between April of 2020 and July of 2021, Manhattan’s population fell by nearly 7%, or 117,000 people — the second-biggest loss of any county after Los Angeles, which is six times more populous.

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While 65% of urban counties nationwide gained population in that plague year, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens each declined by more than 3% to give New York City a net loss of 327,000 people. In just a year, New York State lost nearly half of the population it had added over the preceding 10 years, with the city accounting for more than 92% of the state’s loss.

Things may be even worse in Manhattan than the population decline suggests, with many fewer commuters (and tourists) now arriving on the island each day. Citywide, subway travel is down by more than 40% from pre-pandemic numbers, and by more than 50% on the commuter rails. Offices are still mostly empty, and no one seriously thinks they’re going to be fully repopulated by people commuting in five days a week.

But in Albany, the spending fight has been about whether the $10 billion in new state spending that Hochul, running for a term of her own, wants to add would be enough (spoiler: it won’t be), and about which new items — a casino in Manhattan (and a reminder there that then-state Sen. Eric Adams was a player in the corrupt process to choose which “lucky” winner would get to build a vastly profitable racino in Queens),  or a new football stadium in Buffalo.

Even setting aside rising inflation rates that could punish the city’s crucial financial sector, the idea that we’re just going to return to the old normal seems increasingly absurd.

 

Zeldin wins big, but a primary awaits: 5 takeaways from the NY GOP convention

 GOTHAMIST

BY JON CAMPBELL AND BRIGID BERGIN

PUBLISHED MARCH 1, 2022 

  

47 COMMENTS

Rep. Lee Zeldin speaks to delegates and assembled party officials at the 2022 NYGOP Convention, in Garden City, Long Island.

JOHN MINCHILLO/AP/SHUTTERSTOCK

Rep. Lee Zeldin easily won the state Republican Committee’s gubernatorial nod Tuesday at the party convention on Long Island, taking home more than 85% of the vote – a margin that makes it tougher for his GOP rivals to make the June 28 ballot.

His victory capped the Republicans’ two-day nominating convention at the Garden City Hotel, where party leaders backed a slate of candidates who repeatedly made clear they intend to make crime one of the defining issues of the 2022 campaigns.

"We are going to win this race because we have to win this race,” Zeldin, who represents parts of Long Island, said during one of his two speeches at the convention. “This is a rescue mission to save our state that will be successful."

Read More: Kathy Hochul makes history (again): Five takeaways from the NY Democratic convention

But just as Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul is likely to face a primary challenge on June 28, so too is Zeldin. At least three of Zeldin’s Republican opponents – Andrew Giuliani, Harry Wilson and Rob Astorino – intend to collect enough petition signatures to get onto the ballot.

Here are five takeaways from 2022 New York State Republican Convention:

1. Zeldin wins big, but a primary awaits

It was Zeldin celebrating on stage at the end of the convention. But the race isn’t over yet.

Four Republican candidates got at least some votes from GOP Committee members for the party’s gubernatorial designation. But Zeldin was the only one to cross 25% of the weighted vote, meaning he’s the only one to get a guaranteed spot on the June 28 primary ballot without having to petition.

Wilson, Giuliani and Astorino and any other potential candidates will now have to collect 15,000 signatures from active enrolled Republicans spread throughout the state in order to secure a spot.

Giuliani, a former aide to President Donald Trump, worked the lobby outside the conventional hall with his father, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Rudy Giuliani, a longtime New York Republican Party stalwart, said he was disappointed party leaders didn’t orchestrate the vote to allow multiple candidates to get the automatic spot on the ballot, something the party has done in the past to allow for a race among serious candidates.

“I'd like to see a fair and square primary, let the serious candidates battle it out,” he said. “We used to give serious candidates the 25% after the first guy was nominated, so we could have a fair and square primary.”

As the convention wrapped, Astorino – the former Westchester County executive who also ran for governor in 2014 – said his petition operation has already launched and he expects to qualify for the primary ballot. Wilson, a business consultant who launched his campaign last week, is also planning to collect signatures.

Along with Zeldin, the Republican Committee gave its nod to candidate Joe Pinion for U.S. Senate, Michael Henry for state attorney general, Alison Esposito for lieutenant governor, and state comptroller Paul Rodriguez.

The slate of candidates is more diverse than Republicans have put together in years past. Pinion made history as the the first Black person in history to become a major party’s designee for a U.S. Senate seat in New York, while Rodriguez is Puerto Rican.

“This is the most diverse slate we’ve ever put together,” Nick Langworthy, the state GOP chair, told reporters.

2. Crime, crime and more crime

Over two days of speeches and rallying cries, one issue came up more than any other: crime.

A Siena College poll last month showed 91% of New York voters think crime is a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” issue across the state. And the entire Republican slate made clear they intend to try to capitalize on it.

That includes Esposito, who is Zeldin’s preferred running mate and was the only person to seek the party leaders’ nod for the role.

Esposito is a 24-year veteran of the New York Police Department, including a stint as commanding officer of the 70th Precinct in Brooklyn before she launched her run for office.

During her speech Tuesday, Esposito spoke about the GOP’s desire to reshape the state’s bail laws, which Democrats reformed in recent years to restrict the ability to require cash as a requirement for release before trial for most misdemeanor and non-violent felonies.

She also voiced support for giving judges more discretion to keep people behind bars pending trial, particularly if they consider the defendant a potential danger or a flight risk.

“Here’s a unique idea: How about we hold the criminals to task?” Esposito, who’s currently running unopposed, said to applause. “How about we back the blue?”

In general, Wilson conveyed a more moderate tone than his opponents for the gubernatorial nod. But even he made clear he intends to make an issue of crime.

“We will end cashless bail, we will restore judicial discretion, we will fire DAs who don’t do their job,” he said in his speech.

3. Republicans hoping for a “red wave”

On Monday morning, Langworthy, the GOP chair, exhorted the convention’s attendees to build on the so-called “Red Wave” that helped the party pick up seats in places like Nassau County last November. He also lauded Nassau County’s flipping of the district attorney’s office from Democrat to Republican.

Langworthy blasted Hochul as “Andrew Cuomo 2.0” and blamed her administration for driving people out of the state because of high taxes and concerns over crime.

“Get out from behind the keyboard and go grab a clipboard,” said Langworthy urging the attendees to go out “everyday” between now and November to register new voters for their party.

Former Gov. George Pataki, who left office in 2007 and is the last Republican to hold statewide office, said the party’s emphasis on lowering taxes, increasing school choice, and reversing the state’s bail reform laws would help attract new voters. He also criticized the Democrats, calling President Joe Biden “weak” while criticizing party members for their focus on issues like gender identity.

“Right now, the Democrats are having a real debate: am I a ‘he,’ a ‘she,’ an ‘it,’ a ‘them’ or a ‘this.' They don't know who they are because they are trapped in this woke identity crap,” said Pataki, who said Republicans know who they are.

4. War in Ukraine gets plenty of attention

As the war in Ukraine rages on, Republicans wasted no time trying to blame Democrats for the international conflict that has captured the world’s attention.

“I don't care what anybody says and how un-PC this is: If anyone thinks that Russia would have invaded the Ukraine if this last presidential election had gone differently, you got another thing coming,” Langworthy said Monday.

Aside from crime, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was one of the most discussed topics from the podium, with some – like Langworthy – using it as a political cudgel and others simply voicing support for the Ukrainian people.

“I would like to start off by saying Slava Ukraini – glory to Ukraine,” Astorino said at the beginning of his remarks.

5. Petitioning begins

The petitioning period for the June 28 primary officially began on Monday and will last until April 7. After that, both parties will have a better idea of who will appear on the ballot.

On the Democratic side, Hochul faces a likely challenge from New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Long Island Rep. Tom Suozzi.

But the Republican candidates made clear they anticipate it’s Hochul – the clear front-runner – that one of them will be facing in November.

“For us to be successful in this effort to restore balance in Albany, we have to fire Kathy Hochul and [Lt. Gov.] Brian Benjamin,” Zeldin said.

Democrats had already made clear they’re belief that Zeldin would emerge as the GOP’s favorite. In a news release issued just as Zeldin was winning the GOP leaders’ nod, the state Democratic Committee branded him as “Big Lie Lee” – a reference to him voting against certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election in Arizona and Pennsylvania.

“By nominating Big Lie Lee for governor, the New York GOP is sending a blaring signal to New Yorkers that their plans for 2022 are pandering to the far-right, promoting an out-of-touch agenda, and dividing our state,” the Democrats’ press release read.