Mayor Ends Remote Work for 80,000 in Signal to Rest of New York City

[brooklynite]

Source: New York Times

For the last year, New York City has been running in the shadow of a deadly pandemic, with many city and private sector employees forced to work from home, stripping New York of its lifeblood and devastating its economy.

But with virus cases seeming to stabilize and vaccinations becoming more widespread, city officials intend to send a message that New York is close to returning to normal: On May 3, the city will compel its municipal office employees to begin to report to work in person, according to internal planning documents shared with The New York Times. Workers will return in phases over several weeks.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to bring the nation’s largest municipal work force back to the office signals a remarkable turnabout in the fortunes of a city that served as the national epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, coming to symbolize the perils of living in densely packed global capitals.

The move is meant to broadcast that New York City will soon be open for business, and to encourage private companies to follow suit — lifting the hopes of landlords whose skyscrapers have largely sat empty as office workers stayed home.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/23/nyregion/coronavirus-work-return-nyc.html

[EarthFirst]

1. We're proceeding with wait and see...

...with cautious optimism; however we personally won’t be returning to any semblance of ‘normal’ in the mid term future.

[Scrivener7]

2. This is insane. New York State had settled down to 5000-6000 new cases a day for a while, BUT for

last 10 days it is 7000-9000 and seems to be rising.

NYC is the engine of the state in many respects, not least of which is Covid cases. And a new, horrifyingly contagious, strain is about to clobber us as it makes its way here from Europe. AND we even have our own home-grown New York variant that may be more contagious than ALL the other existing variants, AND may be resistant to vaccination and antibody treatments. (This according to Ari's guest on Rachel's show, Dr. Ho, on March 19.)

DeBlasio has done dumb things in the past, but this is the dumbest. Why not wait two months till the vaccination rate is MUCH higher?

SMDH.

(PS: I changed my name, y'all! I used to be Squinch.)

[choie]

3. with DeBlasio it's all about the optics.

I've been in many NY city agency buildings and staff is packed like sardines in a number of them.

[William Seger]

4. "Stabilized" at nearly twice the rate of the first wave, almost as high as the second wave

This stupidity costs lives.

[ancianita]

5. Andrew Yang is looking better all the time.

[ZonkerHarris]

6. bad idea

[Jetheels]

7. "Masks are encouraged but not required".

This is up there with deblasio okaying police driving over protesters.