With the arrival of the new year, the city faces a shortage of personnel, while the cases of Covid 19 increase.
Police announced Tuesday night that they will cancel scheduled days off for uniformed officers on both Friday, December 31, and Saturday, January 1.
“In order to provide police coverage for the New Year’s Eve celebrations in Times Square and for barracks across the city, the NYPD has ordered all uniformed service members that they would regularly be free to report to their labors, “the NYPD said in a statement.
The Fire Department for its part is dealing with a limited number of emergency workers. Nearly 20 percent of those staff reportedly reported ill on Christmas Day.
A dangerous situation due to the increase in the number of emergency calls due to the omicron variant. In some cases, employees work shifts of up to 18 hours. Personal permissions are also on hold to keep response times low, it was said.
The MTA had already reported that the trains would operate less frequently this week due to a shortage of public transportation workers. The agency said users will have to deal with longer waits for the remainder of this holiday season.
Erica Allen, a regular user of public transportation, says she relies on the subway to get to work, run errands, and meet friends and family. He says he fears a shortage of staff at the MTA will prolong his travels.
“I’m already very impatient, so having to wait for a city that is supposed to have transportation running constantly and then having to wait thirty minutes, an hour, whatever – that’s ridiculous,” Allen said. “I’d definitely be concerned. You know, of course we want them to be safe, but also have enough employees to get everyone to their destination.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its quarantine guide Monday, reducing quarantines from 10 to 5 days for people who test positive and are asymptomatic. It remains to be seen how this update will affect city personnel.
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