Indoor dining in New York City will now reopen at 25% capacity on Friday, a few days ahead of the previously announced Valentine s Day kickoff, as part of the statewide push to revitalize industries devastated by COVID-19 pandemic closures, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday.
About 300 pop-up events featuring musicians, actors and other performers will also be held across the state in coming weeks, launching a series of measures intended to bring back some of the thousands of jobs lost in the arts industry, which has effectively been shuttered since March. You have an entire sector of the community that has been out of work, Cuomo said, referring to performers in the arts.
New York State Team
Racial and ethnic disparities have emerged in the COVID-19 vaccination push in New York and threaten to extend suffering in the communities hit hardest by coronavirus infections and deaths, new data show.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Friday released statistics showing African American, Hispanic and Latino essential workers and elderly received disproportionately fewer COVID vaccine shots than whites.
Among the new numbers:
African-Americans represented 17% of eligible essential workers, including teachers, police, firefighters and other select jobs in Phase 1b, but only 5% of vaccine recipients in the group.
Hispanic or Latino people represented 12% of the population of New Yorkers age 65 and above eligible, but only 5% of vaccine recipients in the group.
New York State Team
As New York state’s slow COVID-19 vaccine rollout gained momentum last month, Gov. Andrew Cuomo credited government transparency with helping turn the tide.
“We got more aggressive, talking about percentages, showing transparency, people across the state what regions were doing what, what facilities were doing what,” he said during a press briefing on Jan. 20, as vaccinations topped 1.1 million.
But two weeks later as vaccinations approached 2 million, Cuomo has not yet revealed how many potentially life-saving COVID-19 vaccine doses are going to people of color hit hardest by coronavirus deaths, despite mounting concerns about racial disparity in the vaccination push in New York and across the country.
Amid COVID vaccine rollout, Gov. Andrew Cuomo criticized for micromanaging process
New York State Team
ALBANY - In Gov. Andrew Cuomo s book last fall on New York s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, he admitted being a micromanager. My natural instinct is to be aggressive, and it doesn t always serve me well. I am a controlling personality, he wrote in
American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.
But he was also unapologetic for one of his best known traits. You show me a person who is not controlling, and I ll show you a person who is probably not highly successful, he continued.
New York State Team
The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare fundamental flaws in the oversight, regulation and operation of nursing homes in New York, according to a state Attorney General’s Office investigation.
From nursing home owners potentially putting profits over resident safety to poorly trained workers stretched to the breaking point due to understaffing, the failure to protect frail and elderly New Yorkers most vulnerable to the coronavirus stemmed from systemic problems within the long-term care industry, the investigation asserted.
“New York needs to ensure that nursing homes take care of our seniors and our most vulnerable residents with dignity, respect and the sufficient care that the law requires and that the public primarily funds,” investigators wrote in the bombshell report released Thursday.