Mayor Bill de Blasio: Well, good morning, everyone. Good morning, and I'm really happy to tell you about the vision that I laid out last night in the State of the City. A vision for how we recover, but this is the most important thing I'm going to say today. It has to be a recovery for all of us. That is the central idea of this vision to bring back New York City strong and to make sure it truly works for everybody. Look, over course of 2020, there was only one word that I think of when I think about how the people of this city handled the coronavirus: the word is heroic. This was a hero city. This was a city of people who did everything they were asked to do to fight back, and this heroic city is going to do great things in 2021, turn the tide and recover and go farther than ever before, and we're going to do things differently. We're going to do things for everyone. So please, if you didn't get a chance to see the State of the City, go to recoveryforall.nyc.gov, and you'll see the State of the City video itself, but also the detailed policy document that goes with it to give you a sense of the specific plans we're going to undertake this year, energetically, forcefully, to bring the city back in 2021. Again, recoveryforall.nyc.gov.
Now, let me go over just high points, real quick, the most important thing: getting this city vaccinated. That is the gateway to everything else, and so we set a goal. The only way you get anything done in life is to set a goal, and if you set a soft goal, an easy goal, you're not really fighting very hard. We're going for an aggressive goal – five million workers vaccinated by June. I am absolutely certain we can do it, so long as we have the vaccine, and I am more and more confident because actions of the Biden administration, because the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is coming, more and more confident that we will have what we need. I'm going to push hard on the federal government to get every pharmaceutical company in America into this work, because they're not right now, and the federal government needs to ensure that they are required to produce vaccine, whether they're the originator of the vaccine or not. So long as we have the supply, we can reach five million New Yorkers in June, get to a point of community immunity. Look, this is crucial that we now know we can do half a million vaccinations in a week. Supply is there. We're going to do something amazing.
We're going to bring back our city workforce in May and after, because obviously so many are on the job right now. But the folks who work in our offices and do so much important work, we want them back. We want to send a signal to this whole city we're moving forward. Want to see the private sector bring workforces back. We are going to have an entirely different situation as we proceed into the spring. By end of the spring, I think you're going to see something very different and we're going to have a great group of folks out there, our Vaccine For All Corps leading the way,
Now, a lot of different pieces matter, and one of the most crucial ones that matters to us for today, for our parents, for our families, for our future tomorrow are schools. One of the things that says most clearly we are back is our schools, and so in September, our schools come back fully. We focus on helping kids overcome that COVID achievement gap. Our 2021 student achievement plan focuses on the academic side, but also the emotional side, the mental health needs of our kids after everything they've been through, and we make transformative efforts starting this year, deepening efforts to diversify our schools, to build new leadership in our school system. This is going to be truly an extraordinary year for the New York City public schools. Look, our schools have proven already. They came back when so many other places couldn't and the safest places in New York City. That's all you need to know about the extraordinary ability of our New York City educators and our New York City school staff, and our parents and our kids. Everyone wants to be back and we're going to be back full strength in September.
The crucial issue of issue, an issue that’s been so deeply felt in the last year, changing the relationship between police and community, bringing us forward, more reform, changing the culture of policing. It's all there and can be done because we knew what neighborhood policing. You could change the paradigm and we have, but there's more to do. So we lay out a vision in this recovery for all of us plan that we are going to do, first of all, a battle against gun violence by bringing everyone to the same table, NYPD, district attorneys, folks who do the work on the ground in communities through the Cure Violence Movement and Crisis Management System. We're going to focus on those very, very small number of individuals who commit the violent acts in this city. It's literally a few thousand people out of a city of over 8.5 million. We know how to pinpoint those individuals and go and make sure they are not committing violence, and we need the whole community to be part of that. And in light of that, we need the whole community more involved with the police. This is what neighborhood policing is all about. We're going to supercharge it now, bringing the community into the process for deciding their precinct commanders, a deeper effort to support Cure Violence, doubling the workforce of Cure Violence, an approach that we know has helped to stop violence and that engages community members to solve community problems. And what I'm calling the David Dinkins plan, a plan to deepen trust and accountability by strengthening the CCRB, which is one of the, to me, great examples of the things that actually build trust. When people see accountability, they see transparency, they have more trust. A much stronger CCRB is what we'll achieve, and we'll do it in honor of someone we lost in the last year, and we miss Mayor David Dinkins.
Now, bringing the city forward, it means we've got to feel the changes and the improvements as we come back, as we achieve our recovery. So we're borrowing from the greatest example of recovery in American history, the New Deal. We're taking extraordinary ideas from the New Deal and bringing them right here right now. One example, such a wonderful one in the New Deal was the Civilian Conservation Corps, the CCC. I remember in my family, people would talk about it, the way it changed people's lives, saved people, gave them jobs, gave them hope. We're going to do the City Cleanup Corps, 10,000 New Yorkers who are going to be out there cleaning away graffiti, helping to make sure there's beautification in communities, like community murals, working with community organizations to clean up the neighborhoods, helping us in 2021 to come back strong.
We're also going to focus on – talk about the New Deal – what was the whole concept? The concept was fairness. The concept was a focus on working people, and ensuring that we had a progressive approach to government, including progressive taxation. So we're going to fight in Albany to tax the wealthy, make them pay their fair share, use those resources as part of our recovery. What do you want to do with that kind of resource? I'll tell you something. What's one of the number one things we can do. Let's go right to the grassroots, to small business. Let's help our small businesses recover. So in this plan, direct recovery effort for small business, tax credits for small businesses to put money back in their pockets and a much bigger vision of that, that we could achieve with stimulus funding. I want to see small businesses incentivized to retain employees and to hire more New Yorkers. That's what we'll do, particularly if we can get that ample stimulus we deserve, we're going to focus a lot of those resources on small business. We have to, in every way, do the things that will supercharge the economy of the city, 5G development in this city, closing the digital divide, and things that affect our community in the way that we live and that we feel the things we believe in, and what is a more clear New York City value than compassion, and decency, and a sense of community. To achieve that, we double down now on our journey home plan to end street homelessness once and for all.
The biggest piece of this vision of where we go in our future, how we recover economically, is the vision of becoming the public health capital of the world. We are perfectly poised to be that, and I literally mean perfectly. The finest universities, the finest hospitals, the finest researchers, entrepreneurs. We have all the component parts to supercharge our economy with a focus on public health, and we're going to take what we have achieved in this year, under very difficult conditions. What our Test and Trace Corps has achieved as just one example, turn it into a permanent Public Health Corps to do public health promotion at the community level. We're also going to build out the life sciences industry, which is crucial to our future. Tens of thousands of jobs, a place where we can shine like few places in the world, and I'll tell you something: a city people want to live in, a city people want to come to, is a city that's dynamic and energetic. We got that. That has talent and creativity and entrepreneurship. We got that. It's a city that also has to be fair and just. People all over the world want to live in a place that they can feel is someplace they belong, is someplace that listens, is someplace that cares, is someplace that is fair. That's what we're going to achieve, and some of the things we're going to do have never been done before in New York City. We're going to make permanent our task force on racial inclusion and equity. This is literally empowering people of color leaders in the city government to be a group of folks who achieve, in a sense, a conscience for the city government who are looking all the time at whether the city government is acting in the spirit of equity who identify the policies we need to implement right now, who make sure that it's actually happening.
Government leaders making government respond to their communities. This is an unprecedented approach. It's been working. We're going to make it permanent. And we're going to have a charter revision commission that not only looks at the City government and our laws, but looks beyond. It will also serve as a commission on racial justice and reconciliation. An international model, we're modifying for use in New York City. Because we know there's structural racism. We know there's institutional racism. But we haven't had a full accounting of it. We haven't had a plan to undo it and overcome it. This charter revision commission, I'm giving them a two-year mandate. They're going to get started in my term and I think with the work they're doing, they will certainly get support to continue into 2022. Because there'll be going at the most essential questions of our day and determining solutions with the people. And that's truly exciting. So much that we're going to be doing to change this city, to make it better here and now.
And we're going to work on the biggest issue of our time, the existential issue, the issue of climate change. We are going to make sure that in everything we do, we support solutions to the climate crisis. This is the biggest city in America, when we act people pay attention and it sets the tone and it changes the reality. So we're going to be focusing in so many ways on renewable energy and getting away from fossil fuels. But we're also going to change the way we live in this city. We're opening up some of our iconic bridges to make sure that they become places for bicyclists and for pedestrians in ways they've never been before. And they're safe and they're inviting. We're going to create bike boulevards to make it safer for bicyclists and make bicyclists -- make this a city that truly becomes more bike-friendly all the time. We're going to make Open Streets permanent. It's been a great program. It's energized communities. We're going to make it permanent. But then we go farther because we have to go to the root cause of the climate crisis. That's fossil fuels. That's the fossil fuel companies. So, by 2030, my plan is to end fossil fuel connections in the city. Literally make it impossible for people to create new fossil fuel connections and therefore create a dynamic where people have to turn to renewable energy. This is the kind of thing that actually gets us to the future we need. And we can do it in New York City. If we do it here, it's going to catch on in so many other places. This is the kind of leadership nationally and globally we have to provide. That's who we are in New York City.
We're going to go farther. We're going to connect to clean energy from Canada. Our whole City government will be based on renewable electricity. We're going to use our pension funds. Ultimately, we're going to be able to invest $50 billion over the course of the next 15 years to help build renewable energy and speed its development. Our money, we need to put it into saving the lives of our children and grandchildren and building our future. That's what we'll do. So, so many things, so many big ambitious plans, they're going to make a difference for us in 2021 in our recovery. And that's going to ensure its recovery for all of us. And also build a foundation for a much greater future ahead in New York City.
So those are the big strands of the State of the City. And we'll be talking about it for weeks and months to come, a lot of the specifics. So a lot more will be unveiled and a lot of action ahead. I'm very excited and very hopeful what it means for the city. Obviously, I'm going to talk about our indicators in a moment as I do every day. Number one issue of course, every day is fighting the coronavirus. But before I talk about our indicators, we have a really nice thing here in our city today. And it's kind of important to just take a moment and enjoy it and appreciate it. So, a little history being made. We have a special visitor in New York City. For the first time in 130 years in Central Park, a snowy owl has appeared. And this is pretty amazing. And a sign, maybe it's a good omen. Maybe it's something special. So, I just wanted to celebrate this beautiful moment, but also thank our colleagues at the Parks Department because they're doing what they do so well. They're making sure that everyone is safe. They're making sure everything is handled the right way. They're protecting this beautiful snowy owl and making sure our visitor is taken well care of. So a nice moment for New York City.
All right, let's go to update. First of all, vaccine update. Like to tell you regularly, we all know we need, we all know what the central promise with vaccine – supply, supply, supply. We need a lot more. We need a lot more flexibility to use the supply well. But I still think it's important to see the progress that's being made. It is still the month of January. And here's our number from day one of our vaccination effort – 742,025 doses have been given in New York City, 742,000. That is more than the population of Washington, D. C. to give you perspective on just how vast this effort already is, but it's going to be so much more when we get the supply we need.
Okay to our indicators. Number one, daily number of people admitted to New York City hospitals for COVID-19, today's report, 286 patients. The positivity level, almost 70 percent, and the hospitalization rate, 5.19 per 100,000. Number two, number, I'm sorry – number two is the new reported cases on a seven-day average – bless you – today's report is 4,639 cases. And number three, percentage of people testing positive citywide for COVID-19, today's report on a seven-day rolling average, 8.63 percent. To say the least, we've got to keep doing better. We've got to keep our guard up. We’re worried about the variants out there. We got a lot more work to do, but it's all about vaccine. It's all about supply, supply, supply.
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