NYC NOW - July 27, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

The MTA's new OMNY fare system hits over one billion users. Meanwhile, despite pushback from staffing agencies, a federal judge upholds new protections for New Jersey's temp workers set to launch next week. And finally, as the New York City region braces for a heatwave, WNYC’s David Furst and Dr. Cecilia Sorensen from Columbia University share tips on staying cool.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Thursday, July 27th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. The MTA says its new Omni fare system has now recorded more than 1 billion users as of yesterday. Instead of swiping, subway and bus riders who use Omni can tap their credit card, smartphones, or a new kind of card that will soon be available at vending machine. across the system. Here's MTA Chairman General Lieber.

Listen, from day one, the goal of the Omni project was to provide riders with a faster and easier way to pay the fare, and that's what's being accomplished. The Omni system will replace the city's metro cards, the MTA's discontinuing Metro Cards next year. New Jersey will roll out new protections for thousands of temp workers next week. WNYC's Karen Ye reports a federal judge has rejected efforts by staffing agencies to stop parts of the state's new law from taking effect. The judge's decision is a big win for temp workers, who for years have labored in a largely unregulated industry, often fueling the state's warehouse work.

Governor Phil Murphy earlier this year signed a law requiring staffing agencies to tell their temp workers where they're going to work, how much they're getting paid, and if they need safety gear. But agencies called the rules onerous and asked a federal judge for a temporary injunction to stop more regulations from kicking in. A judge rejected their motion. Now, come August 5th, agencies will have to follow more rules and pay-temp workers the same pay and benefits

as permanent employees doing the same job. 90 and Parkley Sunday now, a high of 94 today, but the real feel 101. On WNYC, I'm David First. It's about to get hot in New York City. The region is preparing for its first official, heat wave this year. That's three or more days of temperatures in the 90s. City cooling centers will be open starting tomorrow, and temperatures are expected to peak Thursday and Friday,

with heat index values of up to 105 expected. Dr. Cecilia Sorensen is the director of the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education at Columbia University. She's also an associate professor of emergency medicine at Columbia Irving Medical Center. Dr. Sorensen, welcome to WNYC. Thank you for having me here. Well, here it comes. We have some very hot weather coming up. How dangerous is a stretch of days like this for the general population? You know, it really depends on who you are.

Really, everybody has a unique risk profile. So, for example, people who are elderly, very young children, anybody who works outdoors, people are vulnerable for different reasons. So for some people out there in our general population, this is a very dangerous event that's happening. Well, let's talk about the kids, especially infants and toddlers. They're most at risk because they just aren't capable of taking care of themselves. So how can parents and caregivers keep them safe? Yeah, this is such an important point you're making. And infants, toddlers, they can't necessarily express to their caregivers that they're thirsty or that they're overheating. And so caregivers need to be very vigilant in terms of watching them, especially if they're playing

outdoors, although I would recommend that parents only bring their kids to play in a shaded area, for example, a park, that caregivers and parents make sure their toddlers and infants are drinking regularly and that they're monitoring for any signs or symptoms of irritability or that they're not making as many tears as normal. That's a sign of early dehydration and that they prevent from overbundling, right? You want to kind of dress young children in very loose, lightweight clothing during the heat. Well, one of the big risks on days like we're about to experience is heat stroke. What exactly is heat stroke? And what should you do if you're think that you or somebody else is experiencing that?

Yeah, so heat stroke happens when your body literally exhausts all its ways it knows how to cool itself. So it can't sweat anymore. You can't breathe any faster. And so the body just basically succumbs to the heat. And what we see when we diagnose heat stroke is that we see that the core body temperature of an individual gets elevated, usually up above 102 or 103 degrees. This is associated with generally confusion.

people potentially having seizures, just really not acting right, potentially having difficulty breathing. And so, of course, if you were to see anybody who looked like that, you would want to contact 911 immediately. But of course, we don't want to let it get to that point, right? So looking out for early signs of heat illness, such as just feeling very weak and tired, feeling nauseous, feeling dizzy. These are things that we should be looking out for in ourselves and into people around us, so we don't let it get so bad.

I think this year a lot of New Yorkers, a lot of us are realizing that it's not just the heat and the temperature that they need to monitor on a hot summer day, it's also the air quality. Why does air quality tend to get worse on hot days? And how dangerous is that? So what we see is that high temperatures actually increase the formation of ground level ozone. And so ozone, you know, stuff up in the higher atmosphere, that's the good kind of ozone, right? but the ozone that occurs down at ground level is usually formed because of products of combustion from tailpipe emissions and so on and so forth.

And when you expose that to heat, you end up getting ground level ozone, which can also cause problems, usually in similar patient populations that are vulnerable to heat, such as the elderly or anybody who has any underlying respiratory condition like asthma or constructive pulmonary disease or any type of cardiac issue. You talked about kids being outside and trying to stick to the shade. But what about youth sports? Should kids play sports outside at all in weather like this? And what about swimming?

Is that okay? You know, when there's a heat alert in effect, I would recommend that there not be organized sports. If there are going to be organized sports activities, I think it's so important that there be shade on the site, that there be plenty of hydration, and that anybody who is participating in the athletic activity is very, very closely monitored. Being in pools is a good idea. Being in the pool can keep you cool. But again, supervising kids who are in pools is very important,

making sure they're resting frequently, that they're drinking plenty of water, and that you have good supervision. When we talk about vulnerable populations during a heat emergency, we typically focus on young children and senior citizens. But should we be doing any sort of rethinking about what constitutes vulnerable populations, given that these heat emergencies are likely going to grow

in frequency and intensity as a result of global? global climate change? Yeah, no, we're doing lots of work right now looking at other types of vulnerable populations, including pregnant women. You know, there's been some early data which shows that the risks of silver and a preterm delivery actually go up in the setting of exposure to extreme heat. Also thinking about anybody who has any underlying medical conditions, so for example, anyone with underlying heart disease or diabetes or high blood pressure, and also thinking

about anyone who takes any medications for mental health issues. So, for example, anyone who takes medications for depression or for schizophrenia, those medications in and of themselves can make your body less able to respond appropriately when exposed to heat. Columbia University's Dr. Cecilia Sorensen, thanks for joining us. Take care. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcast. We'll be back this evening.