EDITOR'S NOTE:
Day 35 of trying to ask the mayor a question, and 35 days of not being called on by the moderator as other reporters get called on, and called on, and called on.
Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, everybody. Well, today is something we don't look forward to, it's the first day of winter officially on the calendar and that makes it the shortest day of the year in terms of how much light we're going to have. So, it's the shortest day of the longest year we have ever been through 2020, but today is also a reminder 2020 is almost over, thank God, and we know that every day from this point on, it’ll get a little lighter in every sense. So that's the good news, we're getting ready for next year, we're getting ready for much better things ahead. But let me just comment upfront for a moment on something that isn't good news, and that's what's come out of Washington DC. I can't even call what the Congress has agreed to as stimulus. It's not a stimulus. It's a short-term survival plan. I'll give you that. There's some aid there that I certainly value for everyday New Yorkers, everyday Americans. It's something, but it's months late. It's billions short. It has no direct aid to localities. There's so much missing you can't call it a stimulus. A stimulus would actually stimulate the economy, help us move forward, help us recover. This doesn't do it. This barely helps us to tread water and from the point of view of New York City, and I know New York State's in the same boat, if we don't get substantial help, we cannot provide the services our people need. We can't keep the good people who serve our people employed. We cannot recover. So, if this is what Washington thinks is a stimulus, they sure don't understand what the people of New York need and people all over the country need. I have a lot of faith that President Joe Biden will make it right, and we're going to need something much bigger, much stronger going forward, but let's not kid ourselves. Something that doesn't help us get back on our feet just can't be called a stimulus.
Now that was bad news, but let's turn to good news now. Let's turn to the things that we can do because we do take care of our own people here in New York City, and we are now, thank God, dealing with a good reality, we're in a new era because the vaccine is here and everywhere I go in New York City I talk to people about the fact that the vaccine is here and it's really lifting spirits and has given people hope. So now it's time to focus on how we turn the page on the coronavirus, how we make 2021 a much better year, and that begins with what we need to do for our children. For so many of us, this is our heart, how we help our children, how we protect them, how we help them move forward, and our kids have been through so much. Let’s remember, every adult out there listening, you've been through so much in this horrible year, 2020, but our kids are going through so much in every sense, and it's harder for them to make sense of. They're going through trauma, they're going through a lot of pain and they need our help. And we have to make sure that help reaches every child, and we particularly need to focus on kids in the communities hardest hit by COVID. We always talk about those 27 neighborhoods in New York City that bore the brunt of the COVID crisis. African-American neighborhoods, Latino neighborhoods, Asian neighborhoods that really got hit so hard and all those disparities that came out. We talk about that to focus our energies, focus our attention on making sure we do what the people in those neighborhoods need and that they get the priority going forward.
We've got to right the wrong by making them the priority.
So, that's what we will be doing as we go into 2021 as we go into the next school year, we talked over the last couple of weeks about our 2021 Student Achievement Plan, how we're going to close the COVID achievement gap, and we're going to do that for every child. We're going to particularly focus on those neighborhoods that have been hurting the most and the kids who need it the most. You know, I will tell you something pretty unusual that happened last few days, something I said a few days ago when we're talking about how we address fairness and equity in our schools, and we talked about how we create more diversity in our schools, how we address a segregated past and move forward, how we create fairness and justice. We talked about that on Friday, and Fox News apparently was very interested in that and they quoted one of the sentences that I said. I said that we needed to recognize if we were going to address all this structural inequality, structural racism, we would actually have to do things differently. And so here's the quote from Fox News summarizing, they said NYC Mayor sees the redistribution of wealth as an important factor toward ending structural racism education. I'm going to say it one more time in case Fox News is watching again, NYC Mayor sees the redistribution of wealth as an important factor towards ending structural racism in education. Exactly right. I don't get to say it very often, but Fox News got it exactly right. Amen. We are going to fight structural racism through redistribution. So Fox News, congratulations, fair and balanced coverage right there. In fact, if we think we're going to deal with structural racism and segregation without redistributing wealth, we're kidding ourselves.
We got to be real about nothing changes unless you put the resources behind it and that's what we're doing. We're going to make sure our kids have the support they need now, and especially in the new school year, when everyone comes back into the school buildings and that doesn't just mean the academic support, it means the emotional support as well. It means making sure the social factor is taken account of as well, social and emotional learning. That's something that a Chancellor's focused on. That's something the First Lady is focused on, but it takes on even more importance as we go into this new school year, September 2021, it'll be different than anything we've ever experienced in our lives. So we have to make sure that we are really looking out for our kids, that we're checking in on them to see what they need and if they need help, we're giving it to them. And this has been an idea that has long been a core notion of Thrive NYC. One of the foundational concepts of Thrive NYC is get their early, help people, particularly young people, early, provide the support, and if you find out there's a problem, you can do something about it. That's what Thrive has been all about. So here to tell you about this really important new initiative for all our public schools and the way it's going to reach all our school kids, the leading champion for providing mental health support to all the people of New York City, the person who brought us Thrive NYC, our First Lady Chirlane McCray.
First Lady Chirlane McCray: Thank you, Bill, and good morning, everyone. I don't know if anyone can be happier than I am today to say we are bringing social, emotional, and academic behavioral screenings to New York City public schools. Yes, finally.
This is a huge moment. Our teams at the Department of Health, Department of Education, Health + Hospitals, and Thrive NYC have worked towards this day for a long time. And if you're a parent who sends your child to a pediatrician every year for a physical, you know, the preventive measures that are taken and peace of mind that comes with a regular checkup, but our nation has never put that same emphasis on engaging the whole child when it comes to education or prevention, when it comes to mental health. That means educators and families don't have as well of an assessment about what our children are doing and what they need. So think of these screenings as an expanded health checkup for students to learn how they are feeling, how they are getting along with friends and at home, even in the best of times, this is a best practice. Now, after COVID-19, it is critical than ever.
So, let me tell you about P.S. 89 in Queens, the borough that was earlier this year was the epicenter of the crisis. Dozens of P.S. 89 students back then reported COVID-19 had sickened or taken the lives of their loved ones. These children had lost grandparents, parents, their parents had lost jobs and they were isolated at home. Every New York City student will carry the experience of this past year in a different way. Some will be processing grief and have trouble focusing. Some will rejoice at being back in the classroom while others will feel uncomfortable. These screenings will help school staff create individual plans to move forward and help educators make sure that no child falls through the cracks. There are no grades, there are no labels or classifications associated with how these questions are asked, there is only learning how adults can offer the best support. We will begin with schools and the neighborhoods hit hardest by this crisis, but we want every student to benefit and we urge a federal stimulus that will help expand this support. Today's announcement, along with our social emotional learning and restorative justice curriculum and community schools reflects a generational shift in education to supporting the whole child socially, emotionally, and academically. New York City is leading the way because we know it's easier and less expensive to grow a healthy child than it is to mend a broken adult. There is no better investment than our young people and when our young people succeed our city succeeds. Thank you.
Mayor: Thank you so much and, Chirlane, I can hear the passion and the joy in your voice. This is a vision that you've had and a lot of other good people have had for a long, long time, and now it will come to fruition starting in September, and we're going to be able to do so much good for so many children. This has been a labor of love for a lot of people. I want to thank our Deputy Chancellor for School, Climate, and Wellness, LaShawn Robinson, who's put her heart and soul into this work and has been one of the architects of so much of what we've done with social emotional learning. Also, someone who's really gotten under the hood and figured out how we could make this work in our schools, day after day, he's a former principal and he's been our Senior Advisor for Education, Brandon Cardet-Hernandez, thank you for the amazing work you've done. I know you truly, truly believe in this approach. Thank you for helping it come to life and I'd like to give you a chance to say a few words about why this is so important, Brandon.
Senior Education Policy Advisor Brandon Cardet-Hernandez: Thank you so much Mayor de Blasio, First Lady McCray and Chancellor Carranza. You know, today is a historic day and one that is truly exciting for all of us educators and parents who understand the inextricable link between social and emotional wellbeing, mental health and academic success. See, New York City educators, we've always understood that our charge is not just to teach content and skills, but to make sure students have the academic, social, and emotional skills and tools that will allow them to thrive in college and in their careers. And to realize that incredible goal, we have to know our students, truly know them, as individuals and as individuals and as scholars, so that we can teach them their strengths and provide the supports in the areas where they need it. And it needs to be said, educators across the city had been doing just that for decades. And as a former New York City public school principal in the South Bronx and in New York City public school teacher, I know firsthand what it's like to have a student who needs additional supports and then grasping for a way to connect them to the care they deserve. I know firsthand the intense work that educators take on, analyzing and reflecting on how our students are doing and then making sure we aren't missing any signs that that might help us do our job better. And, today, we're launching something that'll make that charge, our charge of educating New York City students, the whole student, easier to realize.
In addition to expanding our partnership with H + H, we're launching 27 new community schools and neighborhoods hardest hit by the pandemic and hiring 150 new social workers to support those communities. And equally as exciting, in September, we're going to launch a simple screening tool, a social, emotional, and academic behavioral screener that that allows us to check in on the whole child, and, for some students, connect them to additional supports they need. It's an honor to be here today and to be able to bring these incredible resources to New York City students, families, and educators. Thank you so much.
Mayor: Thank you, Brandon. Thanks for all the great work you did on this initiative. And now, as I turned to the Chancellor, I want to say, when you have a Chancellor who really values this important work, it happens. And from the beginning, Chancellor Carranza has believed that social, emotional learning and a focus on mental health was necessary to reach our kids. That was true before the pandemic, and we did plenty of work on it before, but we've had so many really, really heartfelt conversations about what kids need now and how much greater it is and how we're going to have to do something truly universal to reach every child and support them. So, again, labor of love is the right phrase here. Chancellor, please let us hear from you about why this is so important.
Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I want to thank our First Lady McCray, thank you for your passion. Brandon, as always, you bring it right down to the classroom and I want to thank you for that as well. I want to begin today by thanking all of the educators that are out in the field, that have been on the front lines of supporting our students' mental health and emotional wellbeing while also looking after your own families and yourselves as you've done. That they have gone above and beyond by taking the tools of trauma-informed education and social, emotional learning, and integrating them in new creative ways into remote learning and our re-imagined in-person learning. As we've charted our path forward out of COVID-19, we are here to take our students who needed the most first. That means driving support to schools in the 27 communities hardest hit by this pandemic with more critically important supports. This is not new – we're building on the foundations we've built through our Resilient Kids, Safe Schools and Bridge to Schools initiatives that were well underway prior to this global pandemic. Critically, we know community schools work and we in New York City are nationwide leaders in building community schools. We know what happens when schools are built on a foundation of community partnership and they have the resources necessary to address the unique needs of their communities. In community schools, we see higher graduation rates. In community schools, we see improved student achievement and we see decreases in chronic absenteeism and disciplinary incidents. I don't know about you, but that sounds exactly like the kinds of supports our students will need in a post COVID-19 educational environment.
By providing each of these hard-hit communities with additional community schools, we are partnering with our terrific community-based organizations who have done truly incredible work on behalf of our young people during this crisis in community schools and beyond, and investing in the long-term social, emotional academic success of students in these communities, we will do right by our students in our communities. As our First Lady mentioned, by using social emotional screens, we are providing a simple, effective tool for educators in schools to assess the general wellbeing of our students. With a parent's consent, these assessments will be used to target interventions and craft personalized care for individual students, helping them heal and flourish academically. In addition, it may be that once we do these screens the student is just fine and they're okay. That's fine too, but it's always important to know so that we know when to act.
Paired with social, emotional screening, we are going to 150 additional social workers and expand our partnership with Health + Hospitals to provide the direct mental health care to students. This is an addition to the historic investments that have already been made in New York City. Not only does this ensure our students have access to another caring adult during the school day, but these experts will help educators identify and provide targeted intervention when necessary and appropriate. Our goal is to bring these supports city-wide, but to do what we need to do we need federal support. In the meantime, we will continue to double down on our core belief for our students to succeed academically. We must first need to make sure they're okay. Socially and emotionally.
Mayor: Thank you very, very much Chancellor. And, everyone, one more note on education. We announced on Friday that the specialized high school exams were going to be happening in January. Want to remind all parents, all students that registration for those exams begins today. So, you can start registering literally today. The test administration will begin on January 27th. I want to encourage all young people and their parents who think this is the right choice for them to take that exam. This is a chance for everyone. We want to see as much diversity and inclusion in our specialized high schools as possible. So, everyone who's interested sign up today.
Okay. Now, let's turn to the health care front. Obviously, every hour, every day, the fight against COVID continues. And we now have the greatest tool we possibly could have, the vaccine. So, New York City is focused on getting that vaccine to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. Now, it's a brand-new vaccine. Our health care leaders, our health care workers are getting used to working with it. Obviously, it requires some very careful handling because of the ultra-cold storage, but New York City is moving rapidly to get the vaccine out and get people vaccinated. And, right now, based on the data we've received from the CDC, New York City is vaccinating people basically at twice the national average time. We're basically doing things twice as fast as the national average. In New York City, of the doses we have received, 42.2 percent – as of yesterday, 42.2 percent have been administered. Nationwide, it’s under 20 percent had been administered. We are going to keep speeding that up further and further. Our Vaccine Command Center is leading the way and they will provide regular updates on we're doing through their website, which is now live – nyc.gov/vaccinecommandcenter. So, thank you to everyone at the command center. I know they're working intensely to ensure we get the maximum impact from the vaccine. Right now, in New York City, we've had over 18,000 doses administered as of yesterday, that number again will grow rapidly. And good news – more good news – we have a second vaccine. The Moderna vaccine has been approved and will be shipping into New York City very soon. So, what we're seeing is safe and effective vaccines that are going to change the entire reality and help us turn the situation around. And now, not just one vaccine, but two, and we think more to come after that. So, there is some good news right there.
Now, everyone with the holidays upon us it is another time to remember how careful we have to be. It's great we have the vaccine, and with every passing week, with every passing month, that's going to make more and more impact. But the holidays, unfortunately – we love them, we love our family gatherings, we love seeing our loved ones, but the holidays create a danger too. We saw this over Thanksgiving. We all love gathering, but, unfortunately, despite all the warnings people gathered and in some cases didn't take all the precautions. We saw a spike in the number of cases after Thanksgiving. We're really concerned about Christmas and this whole holiday season – New Years – and this is a time where we really could see an intensive spike and we can't handle another spike, so we need to, for all of us, be careful. Everyone, please, you've got to – you've got to wear those masks, practice social distancing, keep those gathering small, do not travel. It's so important. And that would be true if it were not a new fact that there's a new strain of the virus that's been identified England. Even if it weren't for that, all of these warnings would be true. The new strain makes me even more worried about what might happen and how we have to guard against it. I just need everyone to understand, if we hang on for the next few months, if we do the right thing and we fight back, we can turn the corner on the coronavirus. We can avoid having to put into effect a lot more onerous restrictions – no one wants them. And, look, we're going to need help from the federal government, we're going to need help from the airline industry. It's really, in my view, it's time for a travel ban from Europe, given what we're seeing with this new strain, or, at minimum, a requirement that anyone getting on a plane has proof that they have a negative test if they're coming out of Europe. We need to be aggressive.
This is a decisive moment. If we get it right now, if we're careful during the holidays and we give time for the vaccine to be distributed, we really turn the corner. So, everyone, we need your full, full participation.
Now, let me go over today's indicators. Number one, daily number of people admitted to New York City hospitals for suspected COVID-19 – today's report, 184 patients. So, that's below our 200 patient threshold, but not by much, so concerned continually about the situation in our hospitals. Our rate – hospitalization rate, 3.1 – excuse me, it’s 3.1 per 100,000 New Yorkers. That's too high, we want to get under two percent. That rate has continued to grow, and that's a problem. New cases on a seven-day average, combining the cases that we have – 2,802 is today's number. We want to be under 550. It's obvious, that's a very, very high number. We’ve got to bring it down. And then the update on the percentage of New York City residents testing positive, seven-day rolling average, 6.05 percent. We want to get back under five and go well below that. 6.05 percent today, we need to work harder, everyone.
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