NYC NOW - September 7, 2023 : Evening Roundup

Episode Date: September 7, 2023

New York City Mayor Eric Adams will proceed with a city contract with the company DOC GO despite objections from city comptroller Brad Lander. Plus, the city’s child welfare agency will pay a settlement to a parent who said she was wrongfully targeted for legal marijuana use. And finally, WNYC’s Sean Carlson discusses COVID-19 cases and a new vaccine with science reporter Sarah Sloat. And we continue our deep dive into the role community gardens play across the metro region.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Junae Pierre. We're going to move forward with it. You know, we can't change the rules in the middle of the game. You know, I think the controller probably saw an opportunity to just get in the conversation. New York City Mayor Eric Adams is moving ahead with a $432 million contract. to house migrants, despite objections from city controller Brad Lander. The company, Doc Go, has already started setting up shelters in upstate hotels.

But Lander says the company isn't qualified for the job, and the city didn't properly explain the price tag. Yes, this is an emergency. Yes, just more flexibility. But you still need to make sure that you're contracting with folks who have integrity, who have the experience to provide the services, that you're still making sure the city is getting the best price possible under the state. the circumstances. There are also allegations that DoCo workers have mistreated migrants. The mayor

has the power to override the controller. But Lander says he hopes the administration will at least answer his office's questions, which he says are very reasonable. New York City's Child Welfare Agency will pay a settlement to a parent who said she was wrongfully targeted for legal marijuana use. WNYC's Michelle Bocanegra has more. Janetta Rivers says the administration for children's services separated her from her newborn after the hospital tested them without consent and found traces of marijuana. She sued saying the city violated state law and pursued her because she was black. Now the city has to pay her more than $75,000. Here's Niji Jane, an attorney with Bronx defenders who helped represent Rivers.

Months after the law went into effect, ACS was still so consumed by its own racial bias. and the racialized tropes, the stereotypes about black mothers who use drugs, that it took Ms. Rivers' baby away from her. A spokesperson for ACS says it doesn't separate families for marijuana alone, though parents have long disputed this. Stay close. There's more after the break. No one wants to hear this, but COVID-19 is still around and making people sick. After a summer bump in cases and hospitalizations,

health experts now say it's time to get ready for a potentially disruptive autumn and winter. But New York City and the rest of the country are a few weeks away from new COVID-19 vaccines becoming available. For more, WMYC's Sean Carlson talked with science reporter Sarah Sloat. You know, I noticed this literally today. I was on the phone with the pharmacy and they said that COVID vaccines for this year will be ready soon. And it's a real thing, too. health experts are saying that we should not refer to this year's slate of shots as boosters, right? What's that about?

Think back to the very first COVID vaccines. Those were designed to protect against the original SARS-CoV-2 virus. Then came the boosters, which targeted the original strain and some variance of Omicron. The job of a booster is to give an additional dose of a vaccine after the protection provided by the original shot has begun to decrease over time. So now we're in a new phase where the upcoming vaccine doesn't target the original virus at all. So experts say it's time to start thinking of these new COVID vaccines as less like boosters, helping out our first vaccinations, and more like annual flu vaccines, where we're

getting an updated formula that targets what's circulating now. Now, you mentioned that last year that COVID vaccines were designed to talk about. target two different strains of the coronavirus. Is that the case this autumn? Yes. So the boosters from last year were what's called bivalent, meaning that they were designed to target the original strain and sub-variants of Omicron. This fall, the new vaccine is monovalent, meaning it just targets one strain variant XBB1.5, which is a different spinoff of Omicron. So Sarah, most New Yorkers, to the tune of four out of five, are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Did the CDC see similar demand for the updated shots last year? The demand has been quite different.

In New York City, though 81.2% of residents completed the primary series. Just about 16% received the byavillant dose after the rollout a year ago. Yeah, does that low uptake leave more people open to catching COVID and just generally feel not well this time around? It does because of how long it's been since the primary vaccine series antibodies weighing over time and the different variants that have emerged since people were vaccinated against the original virus. That said, many people have some degree of immunity against COVID through vaccination or a previous infection or both. That won't necessarily keep people from getting sick, but their cases might be more mild. However, new variants,

really put unpredictable pressure on the situation. Dr. Peter Chin Hong, an infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, told me that a vaccine can be seen as a tool in your toolkit to get ready for that future. We are generally protected as a people. However, you know, there is loss of immunity, and that's probably why we're seeing a increase in cases right now. And the way I think about vaccines as an infectious disease, disease doctor. It's not for the now necessarily. It's for the future. It's for an insurance policy. We know by now, right, that the most severe COVID outcomes, hospitalizations, deaths, they tend to happen to adults who are over the age of 65. So what would you say to others who are

questioning if they really need to get vaccinated this fall? Yes. So people under 65 without major health conditions are unlikely to become hospitalized or die because of COVID. We are a long way from the start of the pandemic. Thank goodness. But if you don't want to get sick, then a way to help yourself is to get vaccinated. It's also another layer of protection against the possibility of developing long COVID, which can happen even if you're young and healthy. Now, I feel like a couple of years ago, I wouldn't even have to ask this question because you walk down the block and hit a vaccine site. But where can people get COVID vaccines right now in New York City? Yes, it's way easier than it used to be. There are many options. You could go to your primary care doctor or a retail pharmacy. And if you are in New York City and need help finding a place to get vaccinated, you can always use the city's vaccine finder website, which is vaccine finder.n.com.

That's science reporter Sarah Sloat, talking with WNYC's Sean Carlson. All this week, we're sharing stories about community gardens and the important role they play in the life of the region. We visited a few of them recently and asked folks what it means to them to have access to green space in New York City. Here's Alicia Colodin at Pleasant Village Community Garden in East Harlem. Gardening to me is an outlet. I grew up with my dad in the garden. It's one thing for you to eat food that you grow. It's very different than, you know, eating food from the grocery store.

And I find that journey from seed to plant to fruit. And it's really exciting to watch things grow. And it's also really important to be a part of the community. Before I joined, I didn't really know a lot of people in the neighborhood. And being a part of this garden has really helped me join my neighborhood. A lot of people come in just on a whim as they're passing by. and you engage with them and start a conversation that you just wouldn't normally have.

The garden creates a place for people to come together and really get to know one another on a very different level than you do just passing on the street. This space is a true source of community, companionship, and interaction. You meet people that you've been living next to for a long time that you would never have met before, that are your neighbors just down the street. It's also a wonderful place to meet people who are just passers through and passers by

because we don't have fences or gates at this community garden. It's one of the unique community gardens in the whole city. Being here among green has done a lot from me. Putting your hands into the soil, feeling the richness of the earth, pulling weeds out where I would have no other way to interact with the life around me, with the natural insects and plants. the community garden is an oasis and an otherwise concrete jungle. That's Max Johnson, member of the Compost Committee at the Smiling Hogshead Ranch in Long Island City.

Just a few of the voices we're highlighting this week as we explore the value of green space in the metro region. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Jene Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow. Before we go, we want to let you know about a cool project a few of our newsroom colleagues are working on and ask for your participation. Has your relationship with work and your career changed post-pandemic? Did the pandemic make you take a step back and rethink the role workplace in your life? If so, we want to hear from you.

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