Mayor Bill de Blasio: Well, good morning, everyone. And here’s my message to all New Yorkers today – thank you, thank you, thank you. Amazing – folks really heeded the call yesterday, stayed off the streets, helped our friends at the Sanitation Department to do their job. And, I want to tell you, the Sanitation Department did an amazing job. To all the men and women of the Sanitation Department, thank you to you as well – extraordinary job, made a huge, huge difference. Now, we've got more to do, this ball game ain't over. But I really, really appreciate the effort that was put in both by every-day New Yorkers, helping each other out, staying off the streets, and, of course, by Sanitation Department.
So, here's what we know so far, and there's still some snow coming, a small amount, but, right now, the measure in Central Park for this storm is 17.2 inches of snow. Again, a little bit more in the course of the day today. It will certainly end up being one of the bigger snowstorms we've had recently, but, thank God, the vast majority is over now. Everyone, I went around the city yesterday and wanted to see firsthand what was going on, wanted to check on how people were doing, see how Sanitation was doing. I saw really great stuff. I was out in Staten Island, along Hylan Boulevard and other parts of Staten Island. I was out in Brooklyn, Fort Greene neighborhood, The Hub in the South Bronx. Obviously, I was around Manhattan and out in Queens at the garage in Maspeth – the Sanitation garage. And I an opportunity there to thank some of the extraordinary folks at Sanitation for the job they did. And I stayed in touch with people around the city in the course of the day and heard the same thing, that they had seen multiple passes by the Sanitation plows. And even though there’s more work to do for sure, folks felt that the effort was really good and they could see that we'd be back and running quickly.
So, that's what I saw with my own eyes, and it was an example of the dedication of the men and women of the Sanitation Department. Now, let me give you a few other updates, because obviously we had the local state of emergency in place until 6:00 AM this morning. That's now been lifted. But, obviously, we want to keep saying to folks, if you don't need to be driving on the roads, please don't. If you can stay home, it's still best while the cleanup is continuing. The good news is more and more mass transit coming back to normal schedules above ground. Subway service has resumed and life has coming back a little more to normal quickly. There are still issues, of course, some delays – most flights at LaGuardia and Kennedy still suspended. There's no bus service at Port Authority. But we are also, of course, mindful that while the cleanup is happening, we want to make sure people have one less thing to worry about, so reiterating that alternate side parking is canceled through Saturday. Update on the Staten Island Ferry, operating now on a 30-minute schedule – every 30 minutes. And on the other ferry, SeaStreak Ferry suspended today, but New York City Ferry has resumed service as of this morning. So, you know, a lot of good things, especially thanks to all of you who really heard what needed to be done and you did it. Thank you to all New Yorkers.
And now, want to say with great appreciation to our Sanitation Commissioner Ed Gayson, thank you for what you and your team did over these last couple of days. And Commissioner, why don't you give us all an update?
Commissioner Edward Grayson, Department of Sanitation: Thank you, mayor. Yes. I'm very proud of the work of the department. The men and women of Sanitation did a great job. All of our frontline field personnel who responded to the storm and the mechanics who keep the trucks rolling for us. So, they did a great job and I really couldn't be prouder.
We were out there all through the night and we'll be out there all day today. The fights still on, there's still plenty of work to be done, and we're coming into all those – readdressing all those residential streets. That's where we're focused on today. We did a great job. We have a lot of the main access roads – you know, you’re seeing blacktop today. And we're going to do our best to get blacktop roads into the residential sectors of the city and continue to make progress. There's a lot of work still to be done. Also, today from 8 AM onward, we did employ our first shift of the emergency snow labor program. And for people who want to get more information about that, you can go to nyc.gov/snow. And, today, they will be focusing on trying to get some of the shoveling done at the pedestrian crosswalks and do some of the catch basins in the hydrants.
A little note to everybody about shoveling today. Remember, at some point we will see the cessation of all snowfall, there’s just a little bit still lingering around. But as you get out there, definitely take some time while you're shoveling. Definitely take breaks, because it's a heavy snowfall. But also, be mindful, and we encourage all property owners and people managing properties – remember the people who have mobility concerns. Let's make a nice wide path for people to be able to walk through, definitely try to treat the sidewalk. But I also need to stress, I need you to pay attention to where you're putting that snow, okay, because we have a lot of the curb lines that also do – some of the bike lanes that we have. So, if you could try to not pile that snow that you're shoveling from your – from the walkway into the bike lane, that would help us out, because that's another thing we're going to be focusing on today with the snow removal program, we try to get it to the bike lanes and continue focusing on the pedestrian streets.
Cannot stress it enough – this was a major snowfall event, a lot of snow citywide. We, the Department, are very aware that we have a lot of work yet to be done. And some of the folks that are watching out today and just looking out as you observed the town, you're going to say, wow, I could really use a plow. Yes, you can. We are coming. We're on all snow. We have not taken our foot off the gas and we'll be continuing to do that all through today and into the overnight shift.
Onto refuse and recycling collection, we are definitely delayed. We did not pick up the garbage yesterday and we are not on pace to be picking up your Tuesday frequency service today. We do everything we can to get back on schedule, but, again, we are focused on the snow removal today, continuing on with our plowing. The laborers are doing the manual shoveling and definitely trying to get salt everywhere. And tomorrow, we'll be on snow yet again. So, we have service delays, but we'll keep the messaging out there and try to let you know when we're going to get back on schedule. And I just want to say, again, the Mayor put it out there – ASP is suspended the whole week. So, if you don't have to be on the roads today, please don't. It'll help us make even further to the progress. And again, to the men and women of the Department of Sanitation, they did a great job. But to all the residents who listened to and to everybody who stayed off the road yesterday, thank you for doing your part as well. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Mayor: Thank you very much, Commissioner. Commissioner, job well done. I know you got a lot more to do, but job well done.
All right. Let's talk about some other updates related to the storm. So, of course, in-person learning is not happening today. Remote learning is happening for all kids, but back tomorrow. Our schools will be back in person tomorrow, strong. Everything's looking great for that for tomorrow. Other updates, Open Restaurants will resume today at 3:00 PM. So, for all the folks who own restaurants, all the folks who work in restaurants, all the people that love to patronize our restaurants, they will be back 3:00 PM today. Open Streets initiative resumes tomorrow. Now, I want to remind everyone, people who love our restaurants, please get out there help them out. Restaurant Week To Go is still going on. Amazing deals, amazing opportunity to try new restaurants and help out the people who take good care of us and feed us all over New York City. And everything we do to help our small businesses – and we're going to be talking about this a lot in the coming weeks – is part of creating a recovery for all of us, and we're going to be having constant updates and recovery effort recoveryforall.nyc.gov. But crucial to the recovery in New York City this year is to bring back small businesses strong, and we're going to be talking a lot about the direct support we're going to provide to small businesses, the ways we're going to cut red tape, make their lives easier. But, in the meantime, let's go out there and spend some money when you can. If you can, go out and take advantage of Restaurant Week To Go.
Okay. Now, let me go to the number-one issue of the day – vaccine. So, obviously, everything we're going to do to recover as a city depends on the vaccine effort. We need supply badly. We'll keep talking about that, but let me give you an update on today and tomorrow how we're handling vaccination. So, overall, we said, today, we would not be having vaccination at most of our sites, because of concerns about the weather. And thankfully the storm ended up being a little less than expected, but, you know, when you make decisions like this, you have to be very, very careful about health and safety. We made a cautious choice. So, most sites are not open today. They'll be back strong tomorrow and we'll be able to catch up on appointments quickly. I wish we had so much supply that we would have to say, wow, we have so much to do. But unfortunately, in this case, because supply is limited, we'll be able to up on those appointments very quickly and then, once again, we will not have supply.
Health + Hospitals, sites are open for vaccination today. They have been in touch with the folks who were scheduled. Obviously, hospitals and clinics are staying open all the time, no matter what. So, they're able to continue vaccination today, which is great. The latest number of vaccinations for the City of New York since we started the vaccination effort, 823,670. So, a great number, but a number that could be so much bigger if we had sufficient supply. I'm going to keep sounding the alarm here and keep saying we need a truly national effort. All of the companies in America that could be helping with the direction of federal government, truly national effort to radically increase the amount of vaccine supply in this country. It can be done. It was not done previously when we had a better chance last year, it can be done this year, and that's what I'm going to fight for. And if we can get that kind of true national mobilization, it will make a world of difference. We can be doing half-a-million in vaccinations per week – per week in the month of February, if we had the supply. Now, that being said, I really want to thank everyone out there. Who's running these vaccine sites, working at these vaccine sites, really doing an outstanding job to keep this process moving, even with the supply problem.
So, this week, we have an update on our Department of Health vaccination hubs. And this is so important because what the Department of Health has done – just like Health + Hospitals – where are these hubs? They're in our communities. They're at the grassroots. They're where the people are and they’re where the people are who have the greatest need, including a lot of folks who have felt the disparities of this crisis the most. We believe in a grassroots approach to vaccination, decentralized down to the neighborhoods, down to the grassroots. What are we seeing? We're seeing amazing results. I was out at Hillcrest High School in Queens, a few weeks back, saw a great operation there. Those Department of Health hubs now at the grassroots have provided over 100,000 doses to New Yorkers. And that effort will grow intensely once we have the supply to go with it. That is how we get vaccine to the people that need it, we build trust, we fight disparity – is getting the vaccine to the grassroots. Congratulations to the Department of Health for really impressive numbers so far.
Okay. Everyone, before we go to today's indicators want to give you an update – important update. We have a special election today. We've had a lot of special elections lately, some more coming up. Special election today in Council District 24 in Queens for City Council, and this is the enablers of Briarwood, Cunningham Park, Flushing, Fresh Meadows, Jamaica, Kew Gardens, Hollis, and more – pieces of all those neighborhoods are part of a District 24. Polls are open, they will be open till 9:00 PM tonight. If you need help finding your polling place, go to voting.nyc. And the Sanitation Department – thank you again to Sanitation, they made a special effort to plow the streets in the areas of the poll sites to make it a little bit easier. Sanitation is clearing the path for democracy and we thank you, Commissioner, and all the men and women of Sanitation for helping out folks in that district in Queens.
Okay. Indicators today – number one, daily number of people admitted to New York City hospitals for suspected COVID-19 – today's report, 206 patients. This is a good report today. Now, again, I'm going to pause here for a moment and say, the daily reports are crucial, the big trends are more crucial. This is a good number. I'm happy to see this number, going in the right direction. I'm extremely concerned about the variants that we're seeing, the UK variant, Brazilian variants, South African variant. These are big open questions of what's coming next at us, but still very happy today. We see a better number – 206 patients, almost down to our threshold. Still a high level of confirmed positivity among those patients, 63.89 percent. In terms of hospitalization rate, 5.09 percent – I’m sorry, 5.09 per 100,000. Number two, new reported cases on a seven-day average, that number today, 4,585. And number three, the percent of people testing positive citywide for COVID-19 – today's number 8.2 percent.
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