COVID Rates Are Low in Schools but Spiking in Prisons + Menchaca Enters Mayoral Race

Local News

• COVID testing in NYC public schools has revealed a remarkably low positivity rate, suggesting that the City’s program to reopen public schools has so far not resulted in an outbreak as many predicted.
• Some of the Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn that have experienced COVID outbreaks over the past month have started to show a decrease in cases.
• A poll revealed that a majority of New Yorkers approve of how both Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio have handled the COVID pandemic.
• COVID-19 rates are spiking across two New York State prisons. The Department of Corrections has failed to test all incarcerated individuals and correctional officers are not obligated to undergo regular testing. The outbreaks have been linked to clusters in neighboring schools and assisted living systems.
• The City is creating a plan to bring a quarter of government employees back to offices by the end of the year.
• A plan to end the use of solitary confinement in city jails is set to be  delivered to City Hall this week. The report will be presented for public comment and could become City policy within six weeks.
• A Newsday analysis of data obtained from the Suffolk County Police Department found that officers stopped and searched Black and Hispanic motorists at much higher rates than whites.
• Despite recent court rulings banning the practice, ICE arrests are still endemic in and around New York courthouses. The trend is expected to continue unless Governor Cuomo signs the “Protect Our Courts Act”, which was passed in both the New York Senate and Assembly in July.
• Residents and local advocates at a Landmarks Preservation Commission public hearing voiced overwhelming opposition to a potential large-scale development of a landmarked site in Crown Heights.
• The Climate Works for All coalition released a detailed recovery plan for the city focused on climate resiliency through investments in renewable energy, infrastructure, and green public transportation systems. The coalition estimates the plan would create more than 100,000 green jobs in three years.
• Activists and elected officials joined in protest against a planned National Grid gas pipeline in East Williamsburg.
• Cellular dead zones and lack of wifi are making it difficult for NYC students in the shelter system to participate in online learning.
• The latest numbers from the City’s Independent Budget Office show that between 2015 and 2018 the number of millionaires in the city jumped by 20 percent.
• NYCHA disclosed that there are 9,000 public housing apartments where children under 6 are likely exposed to toxic lead paint. That’s three times the number of apartments NYCHA previously claimed.

Elections

• Sunset Park Council Member Carlos Menchaca has officially entered the 2021 mayoral race.
• Zach Iscol, an Iraq War veteran with connections to Hillary Clinton and varied Democratic Party apparatus, has also announced his run for mayor.
• The State Board of Elections is seeking additional funding to account for an unprecedented number of absentee ballot requests. Cuomo has refused to provide the necessary funds and has instructed election commissioners to appeal to private charities instead.
• City and State published a deep analysis of the current 2020 State Senate general elections.