Mayor de Blasio Warns: As COVID Rates Increase, Citywide Schools May Soon Close

By Yehudit Garmaise

     As COVID-positivity rates continue to climb once again, Mayor Bill de Blasio may shut down all the classrooms across the city to fend off a second wave of coronavirus.

   In the Fall, when the COVID-positivity rate hovered citywide at 1%, the mayor had said that the entire school system, the largest in the country, would go straight to all-remote learning if the average COVID-positivity rate exceeded 3%, which could happen next week if the current upward trend continues.

   The World Health Organization has recommended that the cities shut down when the seven-day average COVID positivity rate reaches 5%.

    While Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has set her state’s threshold at 15%, at what is perhaps a nation-wide high, as the COVID positivity rate at which she would close Iowa’s schools, New York City has among the most conservative and lowest positivity threshold in the country.

    “Closing the schools would probably be the single policy most likely to jolt the public into realizing how serious this current situation is,” said Mark Levine, the chairman of the City Council’s health committee.

For weeks, Mayor de Blasio has been imploring New Yorkers to comply with health protocols to slow the spread of the coronavirus and stop a second wave.

 “We’ve re-opened so much of the life of the city, the businesses, the employment people got their jobs and livelihoods back, schools opened,” the mayor said at a recent press conference. “Can we sustain this if we can fight back this second wave and end up where we are or better? Yes.”

Although many public health experts say that elementary schools, in particular, show low risks of virus transmission, many teachers and parents are worried that sending children to school will bring the virus back home.

   In fact, in the Fall, New York City’s powerful teachers’ union threatened to strike because many of its members felt that they would be teaching in unsafe conditions.

 Although the public schools of most American cities, such as Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco have canceled in-person learning as COVID rates climb, most of the schools in Western Europe have been remained open, while using precautionary measures, such as masks-wearing, open window, and social distancing.

  Many European cities consider schools and daycare to be essential services, and keep them open while putting strict restrictions on restaurants, bars, museums, and theaters.

 Although many health experts say that schools are safer than they might have thought, Levine added that getting to and from school in public transportation and school buses is another issue that could increase virus transmission, while COVID is once again surging.   “We need people to start limiting their movement again,” Levine said.

Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.