NYC NOW - Midday News: Governor Hochul Renews COVID Vaccine Order, Mayor Adams Travels to Albania, and DSNY’s Role in War on Rats

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

Governor Kathy Hochul has renewed an executive order allowing New York pharmacists to continue administering COVID-19 vaccines without a prescription. Meanwhile, Mayor Eric Adams is traveling to Albania Monday on what City Hall says is a trip to promote tourism and economic ties. Also, the Yankees are on the brink of elimination after dropping the first two games against the Toronto Blue Jays in the best-of-five American League Division Series. And finally, acting Sanitation Commissioner Javier Lojan discusses how his department is working to curb the city’s rat population following the resignation of New York City’s rat czar, Kathleen Corradi.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Monday, October 6th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. Governor Kathy Hokel is extending a public health emergency aimed at keeping COVID-19 vaccines widely available. WMICC's Ramsey-Khalifah has more. Hocal is renewed in executive order that allows pharmacists in New York to keep administering COVID-19 vaccines. without a prescription. The move comes as the Trump administration delays access to the vaccine through a key federal

program for children, and more delays can be expected now that the federal government has shut down. Hockel says the order will stay in place for at least another 30 days while her administration and state lawmakers work on a longer-term solution. She's also urging federal officials to allow states to order COVID vaccines through the vaccines for Children program, warning that continued delays could jeopardize access for uninsured kids. Adam says traveling today to Albania on what City Hall says is a trip to promote tourism and economic activity in New York.

Officials say the mayor will meet with the government, business, and tech leaders. On his first day in the country, Adams will meet with the Albanian prime minister and his cabinet and will visit businesses and factories. City Hall says the trip will last a few days. It comes a little more than a week since Adams dropped out of the race for mayor. Election Day is November 4th. And the New York Yankees are on the brink of elimination to end their season as they head home in a big hole. They dropped two games in Toronto in the best of five American League Division Series. They played the Blue Jays tomorrow night at 8 in the Bronx.

The winner of three games in the series advances in the playoffs. 75 and mostly sunny now sunny and 83 for a high today with the light wind. And then tomorrow another warm one, 881, winds gusting the 21 miles an hour, and then showers and thunderstorm chances. at night into Wednesday. Stay close. There's more after the break. NYC. On WNYC. I'm Sean Carlson. New York City's Rat Tsar is resigning from her newly created role as the citywide director of rodent mitigation after just two years. Her role mainly consisted of coordinating with other city agencies, like the sanitation department, to streamline rat mitigation

efforts. Acting Sanitation Commissioner Javier Lohan joins us to talk about what work the sanitation department plays in fighting the city's rat population. Okay, Commissioner, we know the sanitation department is separate from the mayor's office of rodent mitigation, but that role was to coordinate with other city agencies, particularly yours, around the sanitation department's efforts to containerize the city's garbage. In what way did the new office help the work your department already does, and how did her job fit into your department's initiative? So I think there have always been parallel paths when it comes to rodent mitigation. So I think her role when she came on obviously was to have one person to, to go to for, you know, communicating with other city agencies, health department, parks,

department of transportation. There's a bunch more. But I think, you know, it's obviously easy to call one person rather than, you know, a few multiple others. But I think the relationships that, you know, we have with all these other city agencies have been there for very long time. So it hasn't really been played a huge impact, you know, with her departure. So, you know, our goals remain the same.

Nothing really changes at all as far as DSMI goes. So I think, you know, obviously, yeah, we have to coordinate with more agencies, but I think we'll be in a good place. Now, the city started enforcing putting trash bags into containers last year, right, requiring all residential buildings with nine or fewer units to put their trash out in those bins. They have secure lids. A large part of that effort was to reduce the amount of food that rats thrive on. It's been about a year since that lot went into effect. How effective has it been? So it's been very, very effective.

So just anecdotally, anytime we have... any kind of events, you know, people are very pleased with containerizing their trash. In the lower density neighborhoods that, you know, Eastern Queens, you know, Staten Island, parts of, you know, northern Bronx, the different areas, you know, it was a lot easier for them. They have the space. They don't have a lot of constraints. So for them, it was pretty simple. And then as far as, you know, actual data metrics go, we've had a reduction on rodent sightings

for 10 consecutive months. So it seems like it's working. Obviously, we have a lot more work to do because now we're going to move into. to the mid and the high density buildings. And obviously, we can talk a little bit more about that here. Yeah, let's talk more about that. We recently reported that the timeline to fully roll out containerization for bigger trash containers for mid-sized and large buildings

may take seven years due to parking concerns. That is a long time spanning two different mayoral administrations. Can't that be done any faster? Right. So when we do an environmental impact study, we're required to put a deadline on there. That doesn't mean that it's going to take the full seven years. years. We have the support of the current administration. Obviously, the next administration,

obviously we don't know which mayor is going to be elected, but I think they're all supportive of tenderingization. And I think once we know, you know, which administration is going to be taking in place, then we can plan and move forward a lot quicker. I think the long poll and intent, so to speak, is going to be the fleet. So right now we're working through, you know, a contract to have the official, you know, manufacturer in place because the trucks that we use, right now in the pilot up in West Harlem, you know, it was just based on a research and development clause. So we're able to get some trucks and it seems to be working out. So now, once we get the procurement in place, we'll be able to move a lot faster. But, you know,

I don't want to speak officially, but I think we will be able to do it in, you know, less than seven years. Okay. We'll hold you too back. You mentioned that rat sightings are going down, right, since containerization started in the neighborhood's where it has. We should note, though, that, like, when somebody sees a rat, Not everybody calls 3-1 when they see that rat, right? So are there other ways that the department is working on to measure how well containerization is working in that regard? Sure. So there's a few things we're working on.

One thing I'm very excited about is, and it's not public yet, but it's an internal tool where we used to have what's called a cleanliness condition log where our field supervisors, we have over 200 of them across the city. And they're the ones that go out and monitor the collection routes, make sure if they have. any 311 complaints, anything like that. They also do sanitation code enforcement. They go out and they observe the litig conditions, some kind of drop-off bags, and then they will document it. That was an old-school pen and paper log that was very time-consuming. We then moved into a data collection app that all the supervisors have.

It's geocoded. They're able to identify it. And so I think that that is going to pay a big dividends for us because obviously it's not just, you know, household trash. It's litter. It's all kinds of things that people throw on the street. So I think that is something that we rolled it out to all our districts. We have 59 districts. And so far, it's going really well. And once we get enough data, we're going to look to use some analytics and see how we can leverage that for obviously playing a role in road mitigation as well. I think a lot of people, for better or worse, probably more so worse, would

admit that rats are pretty crafty. They're pretty smart animals, right? Since containerization has has started to roll out. Have you noticed them coming up with new strategies to get around it? Are they adapting at all? So me personally, I haven't seen anything myself, but I have seen some interesting stuff on social media the other day I saw a rat, just like running up to a garbage can and trying to run up. And I was like, is this AI generated?

But it was like real. And somebody posted it and said, oh, the rats in New York City aren't the same like anywhere else. And they're like, but you know, the little guy didn't succeed on make it on top. But yeah, I'm sure like there's, look, I mean, obviously they're going to adapt. They're very resilient. So I'm sure we're going to see some challenges as we get more successful. But, you know, at the same time, that's where we're going to continue to make adjustments as well.

What is the plan moving forward for rat mitigation? And are there any new strategies beyond containerization that are going to be rolled out? So I think the mid-density and the higher density is where I think will make the biggest impact. So we have the European-style entree containers, which we called the empire bins. We rolled it out in West Harlem. the pilot. It just started in June. It's very, very successful. We see in the decline of right sightings there as well. But I think more is just the, you know, the aesthetics of the neighborhood. The building maintenance people are very happy with it because you're not storing

your trash in an area and then having to put it out, you know, two to three times a week. And then the container is locked. You have to unlock it with an RFID card. It's only assigned to the building management. So that, you know, that's obviously being very successful. And, you know, next fall, we're going to continue that in Brooklyn. And then as we continue on to the rest of the districts, that's where we're really going to see some huge impacts. And we think that's what we're going to see some changes. That was Acting Commissioner of the Department of Sanitation.

Javier Lohan. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. More soon.

Thank you.