Daily News Summary
Why New York's Last COVID Surge Was Far Less Deadly Than Its First
Gothamist
Feb. 22, 2021
For those who find themselves stuck inside worrying about the new variants of COVID-19 going around, the second wave of the virus in New York City might feel like deja vu.
Yet in some ways, this new surge has been much milder than the first. Far fewer New Yorkers have been hospitalized or died from COVID-19 this fall and winter than last spring, even though the number of total cases over the last three months was 40% more than the opening stanza of the pandemic. As the winter wave overwhelmed hospitals nationwide and thrust America's death toll toward 500,000, medical centers in New York have been able to handle the surge.
So, what has changed? The fact that severe outcomes are less common raises thoughts of the city nearing herd immunity, but hospital leaders and infectious disease experts say the life-saving switch is due to more testing, better knowledge of the disease, and stronger preparation.
Better Medicine
"We look at it in our breakdown of data as three phases," said Dr. David Reich, president and chief operating officer of Mount Sinai Hospital. Spring saw a massive surge of COVID-19 patients before cases slowed--but didn't cease--over the summer. October ushered in a second flood of cases that began cresting in early January.
But mortality rates in New York City steadily declined after peaking in May at 11%. The case-fatality rate kept dropping even during the last surge, and by early February, was down to 4%.
"There are a few possible reasons for that," Reich said. "The first is that in the spring there was just nothing in the way of therapeutics and we had no idea what to do. People were given drugs that turned out to be useless like hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin and a few others."
Now, Reich said, health care providers have a better sense of what works, even though research on certain practices and medicines remain ongoing. For instance, Mount Sinai has started giving some patients blood thinners because its staff observed clotting in a portion of COVID-19 patients.
"Even though the literature is still evolving, it looks like at least a subset of patients do better with anticoagulation," Reich said. Similarly, he said, "The drugs people commonly refer to as steroids...seem to be effective to a certain extent in patients who are more advanced in the disease."
Better Preparation
Another factor in improved outcomes is that hospitals are less overwhelmed this time around because they are better prepared.
Per state criteria, hospitals had to maintain a certain number of empty beds in order to have surge capacity for a second wave. And hospital systems have also implemented new plans for moving patients between facilities in order to balance the patient load.
NYC Health + Hospitals, the city's public hospital system, transferred nearly 500 patients among its 11 hospitals between November and the end of January.
This "steady movement of patients has helped the system manage capacity as facilities convert units to COVID-19-only units or move into the additional surge spaces that are part of our plan," Dr. Mitchell Katz, President and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals, wrote in a January 28th report to the hospital system's Board of Directors.
"[In the spring], there weren't enough critical care facilities in many circumstances to take care of acutely ill patients, so on top of everything else, the overwhelming of the hospital system was one of the contributing factors [in patient outcomes]," Reich said.
Katz noted that the city health system didn't see the same spike in COVID-19 patients as it did in the spring, but rather a steady increase over recent months, which "has made this surge much different and more manageable."
Patients arriving at the hospital are also generally less sick than they were at the start of the pandemic, Katz said. He noted that this, "combined with new therapeutics and other interventions, has reduced mortality significantly."
Widely available testing for COVID-19 has likely made a difference in transmission and hospitalization rates.
"It's the first step to actually interrupting further spread," Dr. David Chokshi, the city health commissioner, said in December, adding, "Once someone tests positive, we very quickly help them isolate."
A much smaller share of COVID-19 tests are coming back positive now than in the spring, although that figure is impacted by the fact that, early on, the few tests that were available were primarily given to people who were already experiencing severe COVID-19 symptoms.
Herd Immunity? Not quite yet.
Fewer positive tests and lower rates of severe symptoms raise the question of whether the New York region is close to achieving herd immunity. The more immune systems build defenses against COVID-19, the closer a community comes to interrupting the coronavirus's ability to cause worse outcomes or spread from person to person. The vaccine campaign is aiding this quest, but a number of New Yorkers gained immunity last spring when the virus swept through essentially unimpeded.
"If there were no immunity by natural infection, we would be seeing a lot more people who have already been infected getting infected again," said Jeffrey Shaman, an infectious disease specialist at Columbia University.
It's still unclear exactly how much natural immunity comes with a coronavirus infection, or how long that immunity lasts. But so far, reinfections have been extremely rare, with one recent large-scale study of U.K health care workers reporting a rate of 1%. Among this group, the researchers estimated that prior infection reduced the odds of a second bout by 83%. While there have been documented instances of people getting reinfected with COVID-19, for the most part people getting sick now did not have it before, experts say.
As of February 19th, about 684,630 people have had confirmed cases of COVID-19 in New York City, but Shaman and other infectious disease experts say these diagnostic tests likely only capture a fraction of total cases. Based on a predictive model Shaman developed with other researchers at Columbia University, the total number of cases in New York City may be five times that amount.
That would mean some 2.8 million people in the city, or about a third of the population, have already been infected. Viviana Simon, a professor of microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, says her research lab also reports an estimate in that ballpark, with between 20% and 25% of city residents infected. Add another 400,000 city residents who've been fully vaccinated as of February 22nd, and you're only tacking on another 3 percent or so.
"That's not enough for herd immunity. It needs to be at least 75% to 80% for herd immunity, so vaccines will be essential for us," Simon said.
Simon and Shaman attribute the milder second surge primarily to an increased volume of testing, meaning cases can be caught earlier before the disease spreads, and clinical interventions at hospitals. Better compliance with measures like social distancing and mask wearing may also have made a difference.
"The problem is that in winter the virus is more transmissible," Shaman said. "It innately appears to transmit more efficiently in drier, colder air and people are indoors more and may be more complacent with controls."
He said it's still unclear whether COVID-19 will end up being a seasonal virus like the flu or follow another pattern.
Reich said that while the second wave hasn't been as bad and Mount Sinai's surge has already plateaued, it hasn't been a picnic either. He added that more research on effective treatments is still needed because it is "still a scary disease" that kills one of every 10 hospitalized patients. "I wouldn't want to take those odds for anyone I love," Reich added.
"It's hard on staff because it's just such a long marathon for them," he said. "There's no light at the end of the tunnel just yet."
Biden to revise small business loans to reach smaller, minority firms
Feb. 22, 2021
For those who find themselves stuck inside worrying about the new variants of COVID-19 going around, the second wave of the virus in New York City might feel like deja vu.
Yet in some ways, this new surge has been much milder than the first. Far fewer New Yorkers have been hospitalized or died from COVID-19 this fall and winter than last spring, even though the number of total cases over the last three months was 40% more than the opening stanza of the pandemic. As the winter wave overwhelmed hospitals nationwide and thrust America's death toll toward 500,000, medical centers in New York have been able to handle the surge.
So, what has changed? The fact that severe outcomes are less common raises thoughts of the city nearing herd immunity, but hospital leaders and infectious disease experts say the life-saving switch is due to more testing, better knowledge of the disease, and stronger preparation.
Better Medicine
"We look at it in our breakdown of data as three phases," said Dr. David Reich, president and chief operating officer of Mount Sinai Hospital. Spring saw a massive surge of COVID-19 patients before cases slowed--but didn't cease--over the summer. October ushered in a second flood of cases that began cresting in early January.
But mortality rates in New York City steadily declined after peaking in May at 11%. The case-fatality rate kept dropping even during the last surge, and by early February, was down to 4%.
"There are a few possible reasons for that," Reich said. "The first is that in the spring there was just nothing in the way of therapeutics and we had no idea what to do. People were given drugs that turned out to be useless like hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin and a few others."
Now, Reich said, health care providers have a better sense of what works, even though research on certain practices and medicines remain ongoing. For instance, Mount Sinai has started giving some patients blood thinners because its staff observed clotting in a portion of COVID-19 patients.
"Even though the literature is still evolving, it looks like at least a subset of patients do better with anticoagulation," Reich said. Similarly, he said, "The drugs people commonly refer to as steroids...seem to be effective to a certain extent in patients who are more advanced in the disease."
Better Preparation
Another factor in improved outcomes is that hospitals are less overwhelmed this time around because they are better prepared.
Per state criteria, hospitals had to maintain a certain number of empty beds in order to have surge capacity for a second wave. And hospital systems have also implemented new plans for moving patients between facilities in order to balance the patient load.
NYC Health + Hospitals, the city's public hospital system, transferred nearly 500 patients among its 11 hospitals between November and the end of January.
This "steady movement of patients has helped the system manage capacity as facilities convert units to COVID-19-only units or move into the additional surge spaces that are part of our plan," Dr. Mitchell Katz, President and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals, wrote in a January 28th report to the hospital system's Board of Directors.
"[In the spring], there weren't enough critical care facilities in many circumstances to take care of acutely ill patients, so on top of everything else, the overwhelming of the hospital system was one of the contributing factors [in patient outcomes]," Reich said.
Katz noted that the city health system didn't see the same spike in COVID-19 patients as it did in the spring, but rather a steady increase over recent months, which "has made this surge much different and more manageable."
Patients arriving at the hospital are also generally less sick than they were at the start of the pandemic, Katz said. He noted that this, "combined with new therapeutics and other interventions, has reduced mortality significantly."
Widely available testing for COVID-19 has likely made a difference in transmission and hospitalization rates.
"It's the first step to actually interrupting further spread," Dr. David Chokshi, the city health commissioner, said in December, adding, "Once someone tests positive, we very quickly help them isolate."
A much smaller share of COVID-19 tests are coming back positive now than in the spring, although that figure is impacted by the fact that, early on, the few tests that were available were primarily given to people who were already experiencing severe COVID-19 symptoms.
Herd Immunity? Not quite yet.
Fewer positive tests and lower rates of severe symptoms raise the question of whether the New York region is close to achieving herd immunity. The more immune systems build defenses against COVID-19, the closer a community comes to interrupting the coronavirus's ability to cause worse outcomes or spread from person to person. The vaccine campaign is aiding this quest, but a number of New Yorkers gained immunity last spring when the virus swept through essentially unimpeded.
"If there were no immunity by natural infection, we would be seeing a lot more people who have already been infected getting infected again," said Jeffrey Shaman, an infectious disease specialist at Columbia University.
It's still unclear exactly how much natural immunity comes with a coronavirus infection, or how long that immunity lasts. But so far, reinfections have been extremely rare, with one recent large-scale study of U.K health care workers reporting a rate of 1%. Among this group, the researchers estimated that prior infection reduced the odds of a second bout by 83%. While there have been documented instances of people getting reinfected with COVID-19, for the most part people getting sick now did not have it before, experts say.
As of February 19th, about 684,630 people have had confirmed cases of COVID-19 in New York City, but Shaman and other infectious disease experts say these diagnostic tests likely only capture a fraction of total cases. Based on a predictive model Shaman developed with other researchers at Columbia University, the total number of cases in New York City may be five times that amount.
That would mean some 2.8 million people in the city, or about a third of the population, have already been infected. Viviana Simon, a professor of microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, says her research lab also reports an estimate in that ballpark, with between 20% and 25% of city residents infected. Add another 400,000 city residents who've been fully vaccinated as of February 22nd, and you're only tacking on another 3 percent or so.
"That's not enough for herd immunity. It needs to be at least 75% to 80% for herd immunity, so vaccines will be essential for us," Simon said.
Simon and Shaman attribute the milder second surge primarily to an increased volume of testing, meaning cases can be caught earlier before the disease spreads, and clinical interventions at hospitals. Better compliance with measures like social distancing and mask wearing may also have made a difference.
"The problem is that in winter the virus is more transmissible," Shaman said. "It innately appears to transmit more efficiently in drier, colder air and people are indoors more and may be more complacent with controls."
He said it's still unclear whether COVID-19 will end up being a seasonal virus like the flu or follow another pattern.
Reich said that while the second wave hasn't been as bad and Mount Sinai's surge has already plateaued, it hasn't been a picnic either. He added that more research on effective treatments is still needed because it is "still a scary disease" that kills one of every 10 hospitalized patients. "I wouldn't want to take those odds for anyone I love," Reich added.
"It's hard on staff because it's just such a long marathon for them," he said. "There's no light at the end of the tunnel just yet."
Biden to revise small business loans to reach smaller, minority firms
Reuters
Feb. 22, 2021
U.S. President Joe Biden will launch changes on Monday to the main U.S. coronavirus aid program for small businesses to try to reach smaller, minority-owned firms and sole proprietors left behind in previous rounds of aid.
Biden administration officials said that for two weeks starting on Wednesday, the Small Business Administration will only accept applications for forgivable Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans from firms with fewer than 20 employees to ensure that they are not crowded out by larger firms.
The changes, to be formally announced by Biden on Monday afternoon, come as small business bankers say demand for Paycheck Protection loans is slowing as firms reopen. The White House released a fact sheet outlining the changes on Monday morning.
When the PPP was launched in April 2020 at the height of coronavirus lockdowns under a $3 trillion relief bill, its initial $349 billion ran out in two weeks. Congress approved another $320 billion in May, but the program expired in August with about $130 billion in unused funds.
The program was re-launched on Jan. 19 with $284 billion in new funds from a coronavirus aid bill passed at the end of December, and a Biden administration official said about $150 billion of PPP money is still available.
But Biden administration officials said there are still many minority and very small firms in low-income areas that have not been able to receive aid.
The changes aim to make it easier for firms with no employees — sole proprietors, independent contractors, and self-employed people such as house cleaners and personal care providers — that could not qualify previously because of business cost deductions.
The Small Business Administration will revise the rules to match the approach used to allow small farmers and ranchers to receive aid, the businesses said.
The officials said the program will also set aside $1 billion for businesses without employees in low- and moderate-income areas, which are 70% owned by women and people of color.
The SBA will provide new guidance making it clear that legal U.S. residents who are not citizens, such as green card holders, cannot be excluded from the program. The Biden Administration will also eliminate exclusions that prohibit a business owner who is delinquent on student loans from participating in the program.
Business owners with non-fraud felony arrests or convictions in the previous year are excluded from the program. However, Biden administration officials said they will adopt bipartisan Senate proposals to remove this restriction, unless the applicant is currently incarcerated.
According to the White House fact sheet, the Biden administration is also improving the program's operations by strengthening and streamlining fraud checks, revamping the loan application and government web sites that communicate with small businesses, talking more with borrowers about their needs, and deepening the government's relationship with lenders.
Kids Poisoned After Lead Turns Up in Apartments Declared 'Lead-Free' by NYCHA
Feb. 22, 2021
U.S. President Joe Biden will launch changes on Monday to the main U.S. coronavirus aid program for small businesses to try to reach smaller, minority-owned firms and sole proprietors left behind in previous rounds of aid.
Biden administration officials said that for two weeks starting on Wednesday, the Small Business Administration will only accept applications for forgivable Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans from firms with fewer than 20 employees to ensure that they are not crowded out by larger firms.
The changes, to be formally announced by Biden on Monday afternoon, come as small business bankers say demand for Paycheck Protection loans is slowing as firms reopen. The White House released a fact sheet outlining the changes on Monday morning.
When the PPP was launched in April 2020 at the height of coronavirus lockdowns under a $3 trillion relief bill, its initial $349 billion ran out in two weeks. Congress approved another $320 billion in May, but the program expired in August with about $130 billion in unused funds.
The program was re-launched on Jan. 19 with $284 billion in new funds from a coronavirus aid bill passed at the end of December, and a Biden administration official said about $150 billion of PPP money is still available.
But Biden administration officials said there are still many minority and very small firms in low-income areas that have not been able to receive aid.
The changes aim to make it easier for firms with no employees — sole proprietors, independent contractors, and self-employed people such as house cleaners and personal care providers — that could not qualify previously because of business cost deductions.
The Small Business Administration will revise the rules to match the approach used to allow small farmers and ranchers to receive aid, the businesses said.
The officials said the program will also set aside $1 billion for businesses without employees in low- and moderate-income areas, which are 70% owned by women and people of color.
The SBA will provide new guidance making it clear that legal U.S. residents who are not citizens, such as green card holders, cannot be excluded from the program. The Biden Administration will also eliminate exclusions that prohibit a business owner who is delinquent on student loans from participating in the program.
Business owners with non-fraud felony arrests or convictions in the previous year are excluded from the program. However, Biden administration officials said they will adopt bipartisan Senate proposals to remove this restriction, unless the applicant is currently incarcerated.
According to the White House fact sheet, the Biden administration is also improving the program's operations by strengthening and streamlining fraud checks, revamping the loan application and government web sites that communicate with small businesses, talking more with borrowers about their needs, and deepening the government's relationship with lenders.
Kids Poisoned After Lead Turns Up in Apartments Declared 'Lead-Free' by NYCHA
The City
Feb. 22, 2021
When public housing tenant Eleanore Bumpurs' daughter and son tested positive for elevated levels of lead in their blood a few years ago, NYCHA managers assured her that the Forest Houses, the Bronx development she called home, was "lead free."
"They told me, 'We don't use lead paint anymore,'" recalled Bumpurs, whose namesake great-grandmother was gunned down by cops in a 1980s shooting that shook the city.
"They tried to put this elsewhere," she added. "They said children use jewelry that has lead."
NYCHA moved her to another apartment in the Forest Houses, and her son registered an elevated blood-lead level again. But because officials considered the complex to be free of lead, they didn't inspect either apartment.
Last week, Bumpurs learned the truth: NYCHA, responding to THE CITY's report on her apartment woes, discovered lead paint in her bathroom.
Hers is one of over 24,000 apartments to test positive for the toxin since 2018. Inspections, meanwhile, are set for tens of thousands more units across the city.
Bumpurs, 32, lives in a development built in 1956 when lead paint was used universally and concerns about its damaging effect on the cognitive development of children were only beginning to surface. By the time Bumpurs moved into Forest Houses in 2010, NYCHA had deemed her entire development lead-free.
That's because of a program overseen by the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) that allowed public housing authorities across the country to declare entire buildings lead-free if a random sampling of apartments turned up only negative results.
That program granted housing authorities so-called HUD waivers, exempting hundreds of buildings from further inspection. Forest Houses and dozens of other NYCHA developments got the free passes around 2000.
Troubling Numbers Rising
The HUD waiver program has since come under question in New York after multiple supposedly lead-free NYCHA buildings were found to contain the substance.
In early 2018, Gov. Andrew Cuomo began attacking the de Blasio administration for NYCHA's failures. The state Department of Health sent in inspectors and randomly tested several apartments deemed lead free under the HUD waiver program.
Three were found to still contain lead, including one at Ingersoll Houses in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.
The Ingersoll tenant, who was raising her children there, recalled how NYCHA managers previously had refused to test her apartment for lead, saying it didn't exist in the complex.
After the press and federal prosecutors uncovered that and other NYCHA failures in what Mayor Bill de Blasio once called NYCHA's "rigorous" lead paint cleanup, City Hall ordered 134,000 apartments likely to contain lead paint inspected and, if necessary, cleaned of lead.
That effort began in 2018 and is ongoing. Recently NYCHA admitted its estimate of how many apartments where young children live likely contain lead was way off, upping the number from around 3,000 to 9,000.
After claiming only a handful of children living in NYCHA were lead poisoned, housing authority officials forced to admit that between 2012 and 2019, the actual number was more than 1,060.
As of last week, the mayor's campaign to test tens of thousands of NYCHA apartments for lead was about halfway to the finish line, with 67,500 of the 134,000 inspected.
Of the 55,000 apartments where test results are in, 24,500 units have so far tested positive and have either been cleaned or are scheduled for cleaning.
One of those apartments is home to Eleanore Bumpurs.
A Legacy of Tragedy
Bumpurs is the great granddaughter of Eleanor Bumpurs, the 66-year-old woman who was shot dead by police inside her NYCHA apartment during a botched eviction attempt in 1984. That incident is considered one of the worst examples in the city's history of police mishandling a response with a person experiencing a mental health crisis.
Like her great-grandmother, Eleanore Bumpurs, who spells her first name with an additional "e," lives in a NYCHA apartment.
And like her grandmother, whose eviction was triggered by her non-payment of rent over a repair dispute, Eleanore Bumpurs has struggled to get NYCHA to address unhealthy and unsafe living conditions — including lead paint.
She moved into a Forest Houses one-bedroom apartment on Tinton Avenue in 2010. At the time, Bumpurs had one child, a 1-year-old daughter. Soon after, her daughter registered a blood-level of five micrograms per deciliter.
At the time, the level that triggered city health department intervention was 10 micrograms per deciliter. Two years later, however, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) changed its advisory to state any blood-lead level of 5 micrograms or higher required the health department to notify the landlord to inspect for lead and perform a thorough cleanup if necessary.
The city, however, decided not to adopt the CDC's guidance, and continued to rely on the higher 10 micrograms per deciliter standard. That's why, once again, the health department did not intervene in May 2014 when Bumpurs' then-2-year-old son registered a level of 7 micrograms per deciliter.
When she told NYCHA managers about her son's elevated blood-lead levels and they told her the building was lead free, she said. Because she was now living in a one-bedroom unit with two children, she was granted a transfer to another Forest Houses building, where she moved into a two-bedroom apartment on Trinity Avenue.
Because NYCHA considered Forest Houses to be lead free, housing officials did not test Bumpurs' new apartment.
About a year after her 2015 arrival, her son again registered a blood lead level of 7 micrograms per deciliter.
The dynamics of dysfunction at NYCHA took a significant turn in June 2018. After the press raised questions about NYCHA's lead paint program, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney launched an investigation and discovered NYCHA managers had been lying about lead paint for years, falsely claiming to have performed all required inspections and cleanups.
A federal monitor was appointed in 2019 and began overseeing de Blasio's new clean-up campaign. That effort arrived at Forest Houses in the last few weeks, with 696 of 1,311 apartments inspected for lead as of Feb. 11.
'We Were Trapped'
On Jan. 24, THE CITY reported on Bumpurs situation, including her collapsing bathroom floor, peeling paint and the elevated blood-lead level of her children. The next day, NYCHA sent workers to her apartment. They began fixing her collapsed floor and tested the apartment for lead paint.
Last week, a NYCHA vendor showed up and announced her apartment was scheduled for a lead paint abatement. The notice he slapped on her door said the pipe in her bathroom had tested positive for lead.
She was given a paper, shared with THE CITY, that said she could either vacate the apartment while the lead abatement was performed, or remain cloistered in other rooms during the work.
"I really couldn't leave. We were trapped. We had to stay in the room all day," she said.
The workers spent the day in her bathroom, scraping off paint chips around the pipe and painting it over.
"There's corona(virus) going around. There's like four or five people in here. I was like, 'Who are you? Why are you here?' With no information at all," she said.
The workers left and on Friday, NYCHA sent her another form stating that they'd be back to paint the entire apartment, but not the bathroom.
"I guess the lead thing is not over," she said. "Somebody has to come and finish."
On Monday, Barbara Brancaccio, a NYCHA spokesperson, declined to answer multiple questions about Bumpurs' case, stating only, "We're looking into the matter."
Biden infrastructure plan could fund new Brooklyn subway, Schumer says
Feb. 22, 2021
When public housing tenant Eleanore Bumpurs' daughter and son tested positive for elevated levels of lead in their blood a few years ago, NYCHA managers assured her that the Forest Houses, the Bronx development she called home, was "lead free."
"They told me, 'We don't use lead paint anymore,'" recalled Bumpurs, whose namesake great-grandmother was gunned down by cops in a 1980s shooting that shook the city.
"They tried to put this elsewhere," she added. "They said children use jewelry that has lead."
NYCHA moved her to another apartment in the Forest Houses, and her son registered an elevated blood-lead level again. But because officials considered the complex to be free of lead, they didn't inspect either apartment.
Last week, Bumpurs learned the truth: NYCHA, responding to THE CITY's report on her apartment woes, discovered lead paint in her bathroom.
Hers is one of over 24,000 apartments to test positive for the toxin since 2018. Inspections, meanwhile, are set for tens of thousands more units across the city.
Bumpurs, 32, lives in a development built in 1956 when lead paint was used universally and concerns about its damaging effect on the cognitive development of children were only beginning to surface. By the time Bumpurs moved into Forest Houses in 2010, NYCHA had deemed her entire development lead-free.
That's because of a program overseen by the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) that allowed public housing authorities across the country to declare entire buildings lead-free if a random sampling of apartments turned up only negative results.
That program granted housing authorities so-called HUD waivers, exempting hundreds of buildings from further inspection. Forest Houses and dozens of other NYCHA developments got the free passes around 2000.
Troubling Numbers Rising
The HUD waiver program has since come under question in New York after multiple supposedly lead-free NYCHA buildings were found to contain the substance.
In early 2018, Gov. Andrew Cuomo began attacking the de Blasio administration for NYCHA's failures. The state Department of Health sent in inspectors and randomly tested several apartments deemed lead free under the HUD waiver program.
Three were found to still contain lead, including one at Ingersoll Houses in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.
The Ingersoll tenant, who was raising her children there, recalled how NYCHA managers previously had refused to test her apartment for lead, saying it didn't exist in the complex.
After the press and federal prosecutors uncovered that and other NYCHA failures in what Mayor Bill de Blasio once called NYCHA's "rigorous" lead paint cleanup, City Hall ordered 134,000 apartments likely to contain lead paint inspected and, if necessary, cleaned of lead.
That effort began in 2018 and is ongoing. Recently NYCHA admitted its estimate of how many apartments where young children live likely contain lead was way off, upping the number from around 3,000 to 9,000.
After claiming only a handful of children living in NYCHA were lead poisoned, housing authority officials forced to admit that between 2012 and 2019, the actual number was more than 1,060.
As of last week, the mayor's campaign to test tens of thousands of NYCHA apartments for lead was about halfway to the finish line, with 67,500 of the 134,000 inspected.
Of the 55,000 apartments where test results are in, 24,500 units have so far tested positive and have either been cleaned or are scheduled for cleaning.
One of those apartments is home to Eleanore Bumpurs.
A Legacy of Tragedy
Bumpurs is the great granddaughter of Eleanor Bumpurs, the 66-year-old woman who was shot dead by police inside her NYCHA apartment during a botched eviction attempt in 1984. That incident is considered one of the worst examples in the city's history of police mishandling a response with a person experiencing a mental health crisis.
Like her great-grandmother, Eleanore Bumpurs, who spells her first name with an additional "e," lives in a NYCHA apartment.
And like her grandmother, whose eviction was triggered by her non-payment of rent over a repair dispute, Eleanore Bumpurs has struggled to get NYCHA to address unhealthy and unsafe living conditions — including lead paint.
She moved into a Forest Houses one-bedroom apartment on Tinton Avenue in 2010. At the time, Bumpurs had one child, a 1-year-old daughter. Soon after, her daughter registered a blood-level of five micrograms per deciliter.
At the time, the level that triggered city health department intervention was 10 micrograms per deciliter. Two years later, however, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) changed its advisory to state any blood-lead level of 5 micrograms or higher required the health department to notify the landlord to inspect for lead and perform a thorough cleanup if necessary.
The city, however, decided not to adopt the CDC's guidance, and continued to rely on the higher 10 micrograms per deciliter standard. That's why, once again, the health department did not intervene in May 2014 when Bumpurs' then-2-year-old son registered a level of 7 micrograms per deciliter.
When she told NYCHA managers about her son's elevated blood-lead levels and they told her the building was lead free, she said. Because she was now living in a one-bedroom unit with two children, she was granted a transfer to another Forest Houses building, where she moved into a two-bedroom apartment on Trinity Avenue.
Because NYCHA considered Forest Houses to be lead free, housing officials did not test Bumpurs' new apartment.
About a year after her 2015 arrival, her son again registered a blood lead level of 7 micrograms per deciliter.
The dynamics of dysfunction at NYCHA took a significant turn in June 2018. After the press raised questions about NYCHA's lead paint program, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney launched an investigation and discovered NYCHA managers had been lying about lead paint for years, falsely claiming to have performed all required inspections and cleanups.
A federal monitor was appointed in 2019 and began overseeing de Blasio's new clean-up campaign. That effort arrived at Forest Houses in the last few weeks, with 696 of 1,311 apartments inspected for lead as of Feb. 11.
'We Were Trapped'
On Jan. 24, THE CITY reported on Bumpurs situation, including her collapsing bathroom floor, peeling paint and the elevated blood-lead level of her children. The next day, NYCHA sent workers to her apartment. They began fixing her collapsed floor and tested the apartment for lead paint.
Last week, a NYCHA vendor showed up and announced her apartment was scheduled for a lead paint abatement. The notice he slapped on her door said the pipe in her bathroom had tested positive for lead.
She was given a paper, shared with THE CITY, that said she could either vacate the apartment while the lead abatement was performed, or remain cloistered in other rooms during the work.
"I really couldn't leave. We were trapped. We had to stay in the room all day," she said.
The workers spent the day in her bathroom, scraping off paint chips around the pipe and painting it over.
"There's corona(virus) going around. There's like four or five people in here. I was like, 'Who are you? Why are you here?' With no information at all," she said.
The workers left and on Friday, NYCHA sent her another form stating that they'd be back to paint the entire apartment, but not the bathroom.
"I guess the lead thing is not over," she said. "Somebody has to come and finish."
On Monday, Barbara Brancaccio, a NYCHA spokesperson, declined to answer multiple questions about Bumpurs' case, stating only, "We're looking into the matter."
Biden infrastructure plan could fund new Brooklyn subway, Schumer says
NY Post
Feb. 22, 2021
The cash-strapped MTA could expand subway service into the "transit desert" of southeast Brooklyn if President Biden and the Democratic-led Congress pass a multi-trillion dollar "Build it Back" infrastructure program, Sen. Chuck Schumer said.
"There's some talk that if we get the $4 trillion we can build a subway line to southeast Brooklyn, which is a subway desert," Schumer told the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce during a Zoom talk on Friday.
City leaders have tossed around the idea for over a century to extend the subway down Utica Avenue to serve the train-less corner of southeast Brooklyn including East Flatbush, Flatlands and Marine Park.
Most recently, de Blasio pushed for a study of the concept, along with bus rapid transit and light rail. The MTA began holding public meetings for the study in 2020 at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but has not put out any info since April.
But with Schumer taking the reins as Senate majority leader, transit advocates are optimistic about an influx of federal cash to help address New York's costly transit challenges.
"Sen. Schumer is right that this year is an opportunity for dramatic positive change," Riders Alliance spokesman Danny Pearlstein said. "Now is the time for New Yorkers to make these types of demands, and say that after decades of defeat at the hands of the highway lobby, that it's time to take transit and transit riders seriously."
Utica Avenue is currently served by the MTA's B46 bus. The jam-packed route carried 44,000 daily riders pre-pandemic — making it the busiest bus in Brooklyn and third-busiest in the city.
The MTA's most recent subway extension on Manhattan's Second Avenue clocked in as the most expensive subway per-mile in world history.
Ben Fried, of the think-tank TransitCenter, said the Utica subway "should be at the top of any subway expansion list," but cautioned the MTA against deprioritizing maintenance of the existing system.
"There's a huge need to make subway stations accessible and upgrade signals and switches to operate reliably. On top of all that, there's a lot of long-term uncertainty about the MTA's operating budget," Fried said in an email to The Post.
"We need to make sure that we use federal funds in a way that shores up the agency's ability to provide service — avoiding excessive debt, controlling capital costs, and preventing a repeat of boondoggles like East Side Access."
Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg have suggested they may pursue a $2 trillion "green" infrastructure plan to help revive the country's economy.
An MTA spokesman said its study of the Utica Avenue corridor will recommend projects for the MTA's next capital plan, which is scheduled to start in 2025. The current $51.5 billion capital program is already underway.
"We're grateful to Majority Leader Schumer for securing billions of dollars in federal funding to help save the MTA's basic services during this pandemic," MTA spokesman Shams Tarek said in a statement.
"This study looks at different transit improvement concepts using various modes and will be evaluated along with other major regional transit expansion projects as we build the next capital program."
Gothamist Sues Bronx DA For Failure To Release Database On NYPD Officers With Credibility Issues
Feb. 22, 2021
The cash-strapped MTA could expand subway service into the "transit desert" of southeast Brooklyn if President Biden and the Democratic-led Congress pass a multi-trillion dollar "Build it Back" infrastructure program, Sen. Chuck Schumer said.
"There's some talk that if we get the $4 trillion we can build a subway line to southeast Brooklyn, which is a subway desert," Schumer told the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce during a Zoom talk on Friday.
City leaders have tossed around the idea for over a century to extend the subway down Utica Avenue to serve the train-less corner of southeast Brooklyn including East Flatbush, Flatlands and Marine Park.
Most recently, de Blasio pushed for a study of the concept, along with bus rapid transit and light rail. The MTA began holding public meetings for the study in 2020 at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but has not put out any info since April.
But with Schumer taking the reins as Senate majority leader, transit advocates are optimistic about an influx of federal cash to help address New York's costly transit challenges.
"Sen. Schumer is right that this year is an opportunity for dramatic positive change," Riders Alliance spokesman Danny Pearlstein said. "Now is the time for New Yorkers to make these types of demands, and say that after decades of defeat at the hands of the highway lobby, that it's time to take transit and transit riders seriously."
Utica Avenue is currently served by the MTA's B46 bus. The jam-packed route carried 44,000 daily riders pre-pandemic — making it the busiest bus in Brooklyn and third-busiest in the city.
The MTA's most recent subway extension on Manhattan's Second Avenue clocked in as the most expensive subway per-mile in world history.
Ben Fried, of the think-tank TransitCenter, said the Utica subway "should be at the top of any subway expansion list," but cautioned the MTA against deprioritizing maintenance of the existing system.
"There's a huge need to make subway stations accessible and upgrade signals and switches to operate reliably. On top of all that, there's a lot of long-term uncertainty about the MTA's operating budget," Fried said in an email to The Post.
"We need to make sure that we use federal funds in a way that shores up the agency's ability to provide service — avoiding excessive debt, controlling capital costs, and preventing a repeat of boondoggles like East Side Access."
Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg have suggested they may pursue a $2 trillion "green" infrastructure plan to help revive the country's economy.
An MTA spokesman said its study of the Utica Avenue corridor will recommend projects for the MTA's next capital plan, which is scheduled to start in 2025. The current $51.5 billion capital program is already underway.
"We're grateful to Majority Leader Schumer for securing billions of dollars in federal funding to help save the MTA's basic services during this pandemic," MTA spokesman Shams Tarek said in a statement.
"This study looks at different transit improvement concepts using various modes and will be evaluated along with other major regional transit expansion projects as we build the next capital program."
Gothamist Sues Bronx DA For Failure To Release Database On NYPD Officers With Credibility Issues
Gothamist
Feb. 22, 2021
After nearly two years of waiting for a response to a public records request, Gothamist/WNYC is suing the Bronx District Attorney's Office for its failure to release an internal database the agency created to track NYPD officers flagged for credibility concerns. The database includes a variety of records, which have not been made public before, including NYPD misconduct findings, determinations by judges that officers may have lied on the stand, and prosecutors' assessments about court rulings that could cast doubt on police testimony.
Gothamist/WNYC first broke news about the Bronx DA's database and similar ones being developed by the city's other four borough DAs in April of 2019. Prosecutors maintain these records because they have a constitutional obligation to notify defendants of evidence that could cast doubt on the honesty of officers who may be called to testify against them.
In late 2019, Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark became the first DA in New York City to release a handful of her agency's files on NYPD officers with credibility concerns in response to a separate Gothamist/WNYC public records request. In the months that followed, prosecutors across the city followed suit with similar partial disclosures.
But since then, the Bronx District Attorney's Office has failed to disclose materials from a much larger, formalized database on NYPD officers' credibility, which it admitted to having in response to another records request and promised to release by January of last year.
"It's been almost two years since this request was first submitted and the Bronx DA's Office has engaged in repeated delays, which amount to flouting New York's Freedom of Information Law," said Gideon Oliver, the attorney who is leading the lawsuit on behalf of Gothamist/WNYC. "Over and over again, the Bronx DA's office promised to produce records and then didn't without explanation. When an agency does that, a requester has no choice but to sue or stay at the agency's mercy."
Over the first three months of 2020, the District Attorney's Office missed two deadlines before which it had promised to turn over the records. That summer, Bronx prosecutors justified further delays, citing gubernatorial and Office of Court Administration orders which had temporarily halted non-essential court matters due to difficulties caused by COVID-19. Both sets of orders expired late last year. The DA's Office subsequently failed to turn over the promised records or follow up on the request in any way.
A spokesperson for the Bronx District Attorney's Office declined to comment on the claims raised in Gothamist/WNYC's petition, but noted that the agency would respond in court.
Nicole Smith Futrell, a law professor at the City University of New York and a former public defender in the Bronx, argues that policy makers and the public cannot properly understand and reform the criminal justice system if these kinds of records remain secret.
"For better or worse, we have a system that is built on credibility, on the word of one person, and very often it is on the word of police officers," she said. "When folks don't have that information, they are not able to make informed decisions about policies, about funding, and all of the things that are important in trying to manage our system of policing."
The District Attorneys' partial releases thus far, however, have already had some effect on NYPD practices. Last summer, a federal court monitor ordered the police department to incorporate prosecutors' compilations on officer credibility into an early intervention program, which uses data to flag officers whose behavior may be concerning.
The Bronx District Attorney's Office is supposed to make its initial response to Gothamist/WNYC's pending lawsuit early next month.
Letter: Able to make my decision
Feb. 22, 2021
After nearly two years of waiting for a response to a public records request, Gothamist/WNYC is suing the Bronx District Attorney's Office for its failure to release an internal database the agency created to track NYPD officers flagged for credibility concerns. The database includes a variety of records, which have not been made public before, including NYPD misconduct findings, determinations by judges that officers may have lied on the stand, and prosecutors' assessments about court rulings that could cast doubt on police testimony.
Gothamist/WNYC first broke news about the Bronx DA's database and similar ones being developed by the city's other four borough DAs in April of 2019. Prosecutors maintain these records because they have a constitutional obligation to notify defendants of evidence that could cast doubt on the honesty of officers who may be called to testify against them.
In late 2019, Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark became the first DA in New York City to release a handful of her agency's files on NYPD officers with credibility concerns in response to a separate Gothamist/WNYC public records request. In the months that followed, prosecutors across the city followed suit with similar partial disclosures.
But since then, the Bronx District Attorney's Office has failed to disclose materials from a much larger, formalized database on NYPD officers' credibility, which it admitted to having in response to another records request and promised to release by January of last year.
"It's been almost two years since this request was first submitted and the Bronx DA's Office has engaged in repeated delays, which amount to flouting New York's Freedom of Information Law," said Gideon Oliver, the attorney who is leading the lawsuit on behalf of Gothamist/WNYC. "Over and over again, the Bronx DA's office promised to produce records and then didn't without explanation. When an agency does that, a requester has no choice but to sue or stay at the agency's mercy."
Over the first three months of 2020, the District Attorney's Office missed two deadlines before which it had promised to turn over the records. That summer, Bronx prosecutors justified further delays, citing gubernatorial and Office of Court Administration orders which had temporarily halted non-essential court matters due to difficulties caused by COVID-19. Both sets of orders expired late last year. The DA's Office subsequently failed to turn over the promised records or follow up on the request in any way.
A spokesperson for the Bronx District Attorney's Office declined to comment on the claims raised in Gothamist/WNYC's petition, but noted that the agency would respond in court.
Nicole Smith Futrell, a law professor at the City University of New York and a former public defender in the Bronx, argues that policy makers and the public cannot properly understand and reform the criminal justice system if these kinds of records remain secret.
"For better or worse, we have a system that is built on credibility, on the word of one person, and very often it is on the word of police officers," she said. "When folks don't have that information, they are not able to make informed decisions about policies, about funding, and all of the things that are important in trying to manage our system of policing."
The District Attorneys' partial releases thus far, however, have already had some effect on NYPD practices. Last summer, a federal court monitor ordered the police department to incorporate prosecutors' compilations on officer credibility into an early intervention program, which uses data to flag officers whose behavior may be concerning.
The Bronx District Attorney's Office is supposed to make its initial response to Gothamist/WNYC's pending lawsuit early next month.
Letter: Able to make my decision
Riverdale Press
Feb. 21, 2021
I would like to personally thank The Riverdale Press and BronxNet for an interesting and informative debate for the candidates in the upcoming March 23 city council special election.
It was clear the moderators came well-prepared with their questions for each candidate, and kept the debate moving along nicely.
As a voter, I found this debate to be very valuable in my decision to vote for who I think should be the next council member to lead our district.
After watching the debate, I know that our next council member should be Eric Dinowitz. Eric displayed a command of the issues that are most important to our district, like better schools, affordable housing, and support for our small businesses. It's clear his vision is rooted in the community service he has been doing since he was a kid, growing up right here in our district.
He handled tough questions well, and always managed to distinguish himself by referencing the things he had already accomplished for the people of the Northwest Bronx.
I encourage everyone who hasn't seen the debate already to do so, and get out to vote in this important special election.
Hillel Landman
Opinion: Just like pre-coronavirus times: MTA gives New Yorkers a toll-hike screwing
Feb. 21, 2021
I would like to personally thank The Riverdale Press and BronxNet for an interesting and informative debate for the candidates in the upcoming March 23 city council special election.
It was clear the moderators came well-prepared with their questions for each candidate, and kept the debate moving along nicely.
As a voter, I found this debate to be very valuable in my decision to vote for who I think should be the next council member to lead our district.
After watching the debate, I know that our next council member should be Eric Dinowitz. Eric displayed a command of the issues that are most important to our district, like better schools, affordable housing, and support for our small businesses. It's clear his vision is rooted in the community service he has been doing since he was a kid, growing up right here in our district.
He handled tough questions well, and always managed to distinguish himself by referencing the things he had already accomplished for the people of the Northwest Bronx.
I encourage everyone who hasn't seen the debate already to do so, and get out to vote in this important special election.
Hillel Landman
Opinion: Just like pre-coronavirus times: MTA gives New Yorkers a toll-hike screwing
Staten Island Advance
Feb. 22, 2021
After a year of battling the COVID-19 pandemic, we've all wanted to get back to normal, right?
So give thanks to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. They've reminded us of what things were like in the pre-pandemic world.
The MTA last week voted to raise tolls at area bridges and tunnels, including the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.
Ordinary tolls as well as E-ZPass and Tolls-By-Mail rates for MTA crossings will increase come April 1. The Staten Island resident discount for the Verrazzano will also increase.
All told, tolls will increase by around 7 percent.
Hey, the pandemic has been hard on everyone, including the MTA. Remember how people weren't driving for all those months last year while coronavirus was tearing through New York? Remember how people didn't take mass transit?
That reduced revenue means that the perpetual MTA budget hole is even bigger now. Just like the holes in the budgets of New Yorkers who suffered unemployment or reduced work hours during the pandemic.
Unlike the MTA, though, ordinary folks can't vote to increase their own revenues. I don't know a lot of people who have seen their incomes increase 7 percent during the pandemic.
I will say this about the MTA: The authority doesn't miss a trick when there's money to be had.
In its undying quest to wring every last dollar it can out of its customers, the MTA has created a new payment tier, in between the E-ZPass rate and the Tolls-By-Mail rate, to ding motorists who fail to properly mount their E-ZPass tag in the vehicle.
So no more waving your E-ZPass at the camera as you drive by.
What's the point, other than give government a way to track you even when you're not going over a bridge or through a tunnel? Why do I always need to have that E-ZPass on display on my windshield?
If only the MTA showed this kind of ingenuity and inventiveness when it came to improving service.
Even with the bridge and tunnel toll increases, the MTA was smart to hold off on increasing fares on the subways, buses and commuter rail lines. The authority also put the brakes on any service cuts.
After all, ridership is still down as a result of the pandemic. Many workers still haven't returned to their offices. Some may never go back. Other New Yorkers remain scared of taking mass transit out of fear of catching the virus.
That's a lot of empty seats on the buses and trains. You'd have to be pretty dumb to actually increase fares at such a time. But rest assured that we'll see those fares increase once ridership levels return to something approaching pre-pandemic norms, if not before.
And of course, the MTA can't increase tolls without giving Staten Island a little extra kick in the shins.
In addition to increased tolls, E-ZPass rates and resident discount payments, the MTA voted to eliminate the Verrazzano carpool discount. That program allowed borough residents with three or more people in the vehicle to get an even cheaper ride over the bridge.
In 2020, there were 13,000 people enrolled in the program. So this isn't some backwater program that nobody's taking advantage of. It's going to hurt a lot of motorists.
And so much for encouraging people to carpool as a way to be more ecologically friendly and save the planet. What are green thoughts compared to another $2 million in revenue that the MTA is expected to garner by eliminating the carpool program?
Not that the toll hikes will solve all the MTA's problems. They never have and never will. The MTA still needs billions in federal aid in order to even begin righting the ship, especially given the economic carnage wrought by COVID-19.
All that we can rely on is that fares and tolls will keep increasing. The MTA is good at doing that.
Feb. 22, 2021
After a year of battling the COVID-19 pandemic, we've all wanted to get back to normal, right?
So give thanks to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. They've reminded us of what things were like in the pre-pandemic world.
The MTA last week voted to raise tolls at area bridges and tunnels, including the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.
Ordinary tolls as well as E-ZPass and Tolls-By-Mail rates for MTA crossings will increase come April 1. The Staten Island resident discount for the Verrazzano will also increase.
All told, tolls will increase by around 7 percent.
Hey, the pandemic has been hard on everyone, including the MTA. Remember how people weren't driving for all those months last year while coronavirus was tearing through New York? Remember how people didn't take mass transit?
That reduced revenue means that the perpetual MTA budget hole is even bigger now. Just like the holes in the budgets of New Yorkers who suffered unemployment or reduced work hours during the pandemic.
Unlike the MTA, though, ordinary folks can't vote to increase their own revenues. I don't know a lot of people who have seen their incomes increase 7 percent during the pandemic.
I will say this about the MTA: The authority doesn't miss a trick when there's money to be had.
In its undying quest to wring every last dollar it can out of its customers, the MTA has created a new payment tier, in between the E-ZPass rate and the Tolls-By-Mail rate, to ding motorists who fail to properly mount their E-ZPass tag in the vehicle.
So no more waving your E-ZPass at the camera as you drive by.
What's the point, other than give government a way to track you even when you're not going over a bridge or through a tunnel? Why do I always need to have that E-ZPass on display on my windshield?
If only the MTA showed this kind of ingenuity and inventiveness when it came to improving service.
Even with the bridge and tunnel toll increases, the MTA was smart to hold off on increasing fares on the subways, buses and commuter rail lines. The authority also put the brakes on any service cuts.
After all, ridership is still down as a result of the pandemic. Many workers still haven't returned to their offices. Some may never go back. Other New Yorkers remain scared of taking mass transit out of fear of catching the virus.
That's a lot of empty seats on the buses and trains. You'd have to be pretty dumb to actually increase fares at such a time. But rest assured that we'll see those fares increase once ridership levels return to something approaching pre-pandemic norms, if not before.
And of course, the MTA can't increase tolls without giving Staten Island a little extra kick in the shins.
In addition to increased tolls, E-ZPass rates and resident discount payments, the MTA voted to eliminate the Verrazzano carpool discount. That program allowed borough residents with three or more people in the vehicle to get an even cheaper ride over the bridge.
In 2020, there were 13,000 people enrolled in the program. So this isn't some backwater program that nobody's taking advantage of. It's going to hurt a lot of motorists.
And so much for encouraging people to carpool as a way to be more ecologically friendly and save the planet. What are green thoughts compared to another $2 million in revenue that the MTA is expected to garner by eliminating the carpool program?
Not that the toll hikes will solve all the MTA's problems. They never have and never will. The MTA still needs billions in federal aid in order to even begin righting the ship, especially given the economic carnage wrought by COVID-19.
All that we can rely on is that fares and tolls will keep increasing. The MTA is good at doing that.
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