The biggest and least forgivable mistake of New York’s coronavirus response is the one happening right now: failing to learn from experience.
New York’s leaders have yet to properly investigate the state’s handling of the crisis four years ago, which all but guarantees that its public health officials will be just as unprepared when the next virus strikes. And that could come at any time.
Thankfully, a solution has emerged in Albany. A bill pending in the Legislature would convene a commission of outside experts to analyze everything that happened in 2020, identify weak points and lay out a plan for building the state a more effective pandemic defense.
The proposal stands a chance of becoming reality this year — and of saving thousands of lives in future outbreaks.
The chief sponsors are a pair of lawmakers whose districts were hit especially hard in the spring of 2020, Assembly Member Jessica González-Rojas of Queens and Sen. Julia Salazar of Brooklyn. They’re angling to include funds for the Pandemic Response Study Commission in the state budget.
This type of “after-action review” ought to be routine after disasters of any size — let alone a once-in-a-century crisis that killed 80,000 New Yorkers, derailed the economy and brought normal life to a standstill.
Among those who see the need is Andrew Cuomo: “We always said there should be a pandemic look-back to help inform how to address the next crisis,” the former governor’s spokesman told Newsday.
The federal government’s feckless response should be studied, too. But public health is primarily a state responsibility, and one lesson of 2020 is that New Yorkers cannot rely on Washington in a crisis.
Nor should lawmakers be satisfied with the study that Gov. Hochul ordered from a consulting firm, which is currently overdue. That firm has no power to subpoena documents or witnesses. It also answers to the governor, not the public.
A catastrophe on the scale of COVID demands a larger-scale investigation with independence, clout and credibility. And that’s what the proposed commission is well designed to provide.
The panel would consist of 16 members, half chosen by the governor and half by the Legislature. Appointees would have expertise in relevant fields, such as public health or emergency management. They would also come from outside state government, setting them apart from the bureaucracies they are reviewing.
The commission would be mandated to hold open hearings and report directly to the public — publishing its interim findings within one year and its final recommendations after 18 months. It would also have subpoena power, giving it access to records and testimony that might otherwise remain unexamined.
This commission will have its work cut out.
One high-priority topic would be the Cuomo administration’s hotly debated order requiring nursing homes to accept thousands of COVID-positive patients who were transferred from hospitals. The commission could set the record straight on why this decision was made and how many additional deaths it may have caused, providing accountability to the many families who lost their loved ones.
But many lower-profile issues would also require attention.
In hindsight, it’s clear that the virus was spreading in New York for weeks before officials detected a first case. Could the state develop better surveillance systems — such as routinely testing sewage waste — to avoid being in the dark next time?
It also turned out that the state had neglected its pandemic stockpile, leaving it with expired supplies. What could be done to make sure that doesn’t happen again?
Meanwhile, a March 2022 audit by the comptroller’s office found that nursing homes have long flouted the Health Department’s system for tracking outbreaks — rendering it useless for providing an early warning of COVID-19. When the comptroller did a follow-up almost two years later, it found that the department still had done nothing to fix or replace its broken program.
Clearly, the state’s public health system isn’t going to reform itself without outside intervention.
The point of exposing such breakdowns is not to embarrass the officials involved — but to make sure that these and many other problems are fixed now, before the state finds itself in another emergency.
No one should forget how bad things got in 2020. New York City’s first COVID wave claimed almost 23,000 lives in just six weeks, making it one of the fastest moving and deadliest outbreaks seen anywhere on the planet.
Painful as it might be to revisit those harrowing days, there is no other responsible choice. Only by carefully and systematically documenting the mistakes of the coronavirus pandemic — and learning from them — can we hope to prevent such a nightmare from ever happening again.
Hammond is senior fellow for health policy at the Empire Center.
We need a real review of how N.Y. handled COVID
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26
05.03.2024
The biggest and least forgivable mistake of New York’s coronavirus response is the one happening right now: failing to learn from experience.
New York’s leaders have yet to properly investigate the state’s handling of the crisis four years ago, which all but guarantees that its public health officials will be just as unprepared when the next virus strikes. And that could come at any time.
Thankfully, a solution has emerged in Albany. A bill pending in the Legislature would convene a commission of outside experts to analyze everything that happened in 2020, identify weak points and lay out a plan for building the state a more effective pandemic defense.
The proposal stands a chance of becoming reality this year — and of saving thousands of lives in future outbreaks.
The chief sponsors are a pair of lawmakers whose districts were hit especially hard in the spring of 2020, Assembly Member Jessica González-Rojas of Queens and Sen. Julia Salazar of Brooklyn. They’re angling to include funds for the Pandemic Response Study Commission in the state budget.
This type of “after-action review” ought to be routine after disasters of any size — let alone a once-in-a-century crisis that killed 80,000 New Yorkers,........
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