Status: 11.01.2022 12:43 p.m.
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“You can’t keep New York City running from home,” says the new Mayor Adams – and doesn’t want any corona restrictions even with an incidence of 3,600. Some districts do not want to participate.
By Peter Mücke, ARD Studio New York
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New York’s new mayor poses as a tough dog. The ex-police officer Eric Adams is always on the road with a gun and refuses security officers. Even before the Omicron variant of the corona virus, which New York has again firmly under control, it shows no weakness. “The city must remain open,” he recently said as a motto. “We can’t close again. We can’t afford to let the city slide further into economic hopelessness.”
Adams was demonstratively sworn in on New Year’s Eve amid the celebrations in Times Square. A place that every New Yorker avoids not only at this time: The “balldrop” on New Year’s Eve, the lowering of the so-called time ball is a purely tourist event – but that’s what Adams is interested in too. He accuses his predecessor De Blasio of having made policies that are too anti-economic and anti-tourist. And so Adam’s credo is: Back to normal – everyone back to the office. And that with a 7-day incidence of more than 3,600.
Manhattan boss advises caution
“Take the accountant in a bank. It’s not just about him. If he works in the office, the entire financial ecosystem benefits,” explains Adams. “He goes to the dry cleaner in his suit. He goes to the restaurant with guests. 70 percent of hotel beds are booked by business travelers. He buys a hot dog on the street – hopefully a vegan hot dog. He does something for the economy. Man can’t keep New York City going from home. “
Those who stick to the route of their vegan new head of the city have to cram into completely overcrowded subways – if any come at all. 21 percent of drivers and handlers are sick at home. Due to a lack of staff, three lines were completely canceled. Often only every second or third train travels on the other.
Which is why Marc Levine, the Manhattan district mayor, has a different recommendation for New Yorkers: “Now is the time to be careful. If you can work from home, you should do it too,” he says. In the district mayor’s office, home office will be possible for all employees as long as the number of infections is so high – after that, one will switch to a mixed form. “I would like to see it like that everywhere,” says Levine. “For the safety of the employees and also to make it clear that work has simply changed.”
Open schools: teachers’ association skeptical
Levine isn’t the only one appalled by the super cop’s corona course in town hall. The city’s hospitals complain of full beds and more and more sick staff. And teachers and parents shake their heads at Adams’ statements like this: “The safest place for our children is in a school building.”
“Schools are not safe”: Many New Yorkers have doubts about Mayor Adam’s course in the Corona crisis.
Image: AFP
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This is why New York is not following the path that other cities in the USA have long since taken: to keep schools closed for the first time after the Christmas break and to offer online lessons, although the New York Teachers’ Union also demands this.
First of all, it is important to determine how many teaching staff are still available, says union leader Michael Mulgrew: “Every day teachers log out because one of their children or they themselves tested positive. Now after the holidays we have infection rates that we still have never had. ”
Hardly any corona tests available
So many parents just leave their children at home, like mother Heather Clark from Brooklyn. She says: “Nobody can tell me that my children are safer in a crowded, poorly ventilated classroom, where hardly anyone wears a mask.”
In addition: Everywhere in the city you currently have to queue for hours at sub-zero temperatures to be tested for Corona. In many places, PCR tests are no longer available – and if they are, it takes days to get the result. Self-tests are rarely available and are comparatively expensive at around $ 20 each.
But Mayor Adams sees the problem elsewhere: “The adults have to stop traumatizing the children,” he says. One should no longer give children the impression that those who make decisions are “hysterical”.
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