12/17/2021 02:57 PM EST
City officials and workers are sounding the alarm over Mayor Bill de Blasio's mandate for in-person work amid the explosive spread of the Omicron variant.
Details: Covid-19 test positivity has doubled within a three-day period — a speed that New York has not reported during the pandemic, according to former City Hall aide Jay Varma. According to the most recent City Hall data, 6.5 percent of Covid-19 tests were positive, as of Dec. 13.
“Given what we are seeing right now, I think it would be wise for the City & other large employers to let non-essential employees work remotely through the end of the year,” Comptroller-elect Brad Lander tweeted Friday. “Especially as people are in & out over the holidays, the more we can reduce unnecessary contact the better.”
Firsthand accounts: Two city workers, who asked for anonymity to speak openly about the issue, told POLITICO they are concerned with the spread of Covid-19 in their offices and the lack of urgency by the city to contact trace the cases.
“There's a lot of speculation that [the city health department] is under reporting to its staff how many people have tested positive for Covid,” an agency staffer said, noting the department's internal website only reports seven workers are out sick. “But among my colleagues, we could come up with more than seven people who were currently out...
The issues of fraud and fraudulent billings continue to dominate national and local headlines. The state lost its federal Medicaid fraud unit funding for not aggressively pursuing falsified billin...