![]() ![]() Levine, the incoming Manhattan borough president. “None of us thought, for those of us taking office in January, that Covid would be a raging crisis still,” said Mark D. Now, all three find themselves once again diverted by a health crisis the country has struggled to leave behind, forced to mediate between those who believe the state should return to 2020-style lockdowns and those who oppose any government intervention. “That leads to broader messaging around safety and how you keep yourself healthy, but really understanding where people are, which is just tired and frustrated.” “Our elected officials are now having to walk this line between keeping people healthy, while understanding the level of anxiety and PTSD that people are dealing with,” said Dan Sena, a Democratic strategist who helped guide the 2018 Democratic takeover of the House. An increase in deaths could follow, although health experts continue to assess the risk posed by Omicron. Most of the new cases in the state are in New York City, adding hundreds of patients to a hospital system struggling in some instances with outbreaks among staff members. Adams, who will soon become mayor and Ms. de Blasio, who has moved toward a run for governor Mr. The swiftness with which the situation is worsening - amid evidence that testing capacity has struggled to keep up with the rising caseloads - could yet upend the delicate balancing act, risking intense political blowback for Mr. Since the depths of last winter’s Covid surge, 82 percent of New Yorkers have received at least one vaccine dose, giving them a measure of protection against serious illness and death, and state and city leaders have adopted a series of inoculation mandates.īut the current tone also reflects a series of political and health gambles: that the Omicron variant, while highly transmissible, will prove more transient and less lethal than earlier Covid waves that New York’s strained testing and health care infrastructure will not buckle and that New Yorkers, exhausted by pandemic whiplash, will once again voluntarily tamp down transmission. Hochul and New York City leaders attribute most of the change in messaging to widespread vaccination. ![]() They are seeking to balance managing another huge health challenge with reassuring an anxious public that they are not interested in revisiting polarizing and politically risky lockdowns that could undermine the continuing recovery. Hochul and President Biden, have been eager to accentuate it. The difference in tone and policy between now and last December could hardly be more stark, and Democrats, including Ms. Mayor Bill de Blasio and his imminent successor, Eric Adams, have been just as unequivocal in New York City: “Adamantly, I feel this: No more shutdowns,” Mr. ![]()
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