This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated July 29, 2022
If you are like most people in Southern Brooklyn, you know of several people who have contracted COVID the past few weeks. Anecdotally, no matter who you talk to, cases seem to be up considerably as of late. Officially, as far as New York City COVID case rates, not so much.
We have all been through a lot since the pandemic exploded over 28 months ago. Everyone is not in the same place on how to live with COVID, but we have definitely come a long way and we can continue to readjust to our new normal. Part of that will continue to be accepting that some people will take different approaches to it, depending on their personal risk and comfort levels.
Mask mandates may have all gone away, but you will still see people who choose to mask up indoors. In fact, due to current transmission levels, the official word from the Health Commissioner is that New Yorkers should be wearing a mask indoors or in crowded outdoor settings.
When New York City COVID protocols were eased a while back and new benchmarks established, mask mandates were supposed to go into effect when transmission rates reached the levels they are at now, but it seems there is no appetite to actually follow those rules. In fact, it appears the only desire is to further remove any COVID precautions, even when spread of the virus is up.
“So we’re not going to hold onto something that’s an old weapon merely because we had it. No. We’re going to create new weapons to fight this new war.”
Mayor Adams on July 7, 2022, responding to why he eliminated the COVID Alert System
It is highly questionable whether any mask mandate would be observed anyway, but even if we leave it up to individuals from now on to make their own choices on masking, the city should at least be clear with the public as to what the risk is, so they can make fully informed decisions based on current data.
Mayor Adams has been moving in the opposite direction, having stripped away what little was left to inform New Yorkers of current COVID risks and help mitigate community spread. At the beginning of July, as case rates were climbing with the far more transmissible BA.5 variant, Adams quietly ended the cities COVID alert system. When he was asked about the decision July 7, Adams referred to the alert system as “an old weapon,” saying that his administration was “going to create new weapons to fight this new war.”
Well, over three weeks later, as COVID has continued to advance, Adams has not unveiled any of his promised new weapons to combat it. In fact, he has conceded more ground to the viral enemy, seemingly waving the white flag with his decision to close all city-run brick-and-mortar COVID testing sites. Again, we do need to move forward through this pandemic, but quite frankly, the New York City Mayor is capitulating to COVID.
Southern Brooklynites can no longer go to the New York City COVID testing sites at 86th Street and 5th Avenue or at 63rd Street and 14th Avenue to get a free PCR test, as those locations have been shuttered by Adams, as he says the focus will be on at-home rapid tests. While those antigen tests are convenient and have become more widely used, there are indications they are taking longer to return positive results in cases of the BA.5 variant. PCR results are also still needed for many New Yorkers to obtain sick time from their employer while quarantining and recovering from COVID.
The other result of less PCR testing is fewer officially recorded COVID cases, which in turn helps justify the rationale to remove more precautions and mitigation methods. Unfortunately, it means those rollbacks are not based on what is actually occurring. Wastewater testing from the Owl’s Head Wastewater Treatment Plant in Bay Ridge cannot be skewed, as it detects COVID levels from the wider community. Levels on July 24 were 18 times higher than they were 30 days prior, while city COVID case rates had only increased about one-and-a-half times during the same time period.
Adams says we need to learn to live with COVID. His actions have us in a place where we will need to learn to live with getting COVID, again and again. Learning to live with COVID should not mean ending the fight against it.
