Views From Around The State
From: The Albany Times Union Editorial Board
One could almost detect a faint “nyah-nyah” between the lines of last Thursday’s announcement that, now that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has lost his sweeping pandemic emergency powers, school districts are on their own when it comes to reopening in September. So there.
Health Commissioner Howard Zucker didn’t put it quite that way, of course. Instead, he couched his abdication of duty in more bureaucratic terms, issuing a statement that “with the end of the state disaster emergency on June 25, 2021, school districts are reestablished as the controlling entity for schools.” Opening plans are up to them. For further questions, consult the Centers for Disease Control and local health department.
School districts are looking to resume in-person instruction in less than a month and were awaiting guidance from the Health Department on how to proceed. Then came Dr. Zucker’s stunning announcement Thursday that, sorry, it’s not my job. The state Education Department reminded him that his department “is charged with exercising control over and supervising the abatement of nuisances affecting or likely to affect public health as well as supervising and advising any local unit of government and the public health officials thereof within the state in the performance of their official duties.” And, as if this even needed saying, it pointed out that “currently, there is no greater nuisance affecting public health and safety than COVID-19.”
As we’ve seen around the country, what ought to have been fairly straightforward, relatively minor and minimally painful lifesaving measures like social distancing, wearing masks and getting vaccinated have become political and ideological flashpoints. The result in some places, particularly the South, has been yet another surge in coronavirus cases that threatens to wallop our society and economy yet again.
Which, on a smaller scale, is what Dr. Zucker’s laissez-faire attitude sets New York up for. The more than 800 school districts in New York aren’t islands; they cross municipal lines, their employees in many cases come from outside the district, and their students and staff interact in sports and other events. School boards, superintendents and principals are all vulnerable to the sorts of political pressures that have led governors and legislatures in some states to issue reckless decrees like bans on local mask mandates. The situation cries out for the kind of statewide consistency that only the Department of Health can provide.
Delaying this constitutionally required response until the Assembly Judiciary Committee’s bloated impeachment inquiry has exhausted itself and the taxpayers’ legal bills is no longer an option. The less-compromised staff of the Executive Chamber deserve a workplace free from Cuomo’s toxicity. And New Yorkers deserve a governor who can devote their attention to the job instead of to their own appetites.
We realize the CDC encourages frequent washing of hands, but really now. The health of New York’s 2.7 million schoolchildren — and their teachers, aides, custodians, nurses, administrators, parents, grandparents — isn’t something Dr. Zucker can simply wash his hands of.