Health

With coronavirus wreaking havoc on the economy as the city and state are working on their budgets, leaders are starting to prepare for a major downturn.

Gov. Cuomo said Tuesday he’s asked the state comptroller to evaluate the outbreak’s impact on the state budget.

“You know what’s going on in the stock market. You also have what’s going on the economy overall, right? Conventions are being stopped, tourism is down, hotel bookings are down, restaurants are down,” Cuomo said in Albany. “So we just did the budget projection estimates. The world then changed since then, so I asked him for any advice that he might have."

Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s spokesman acknowledged the request from Cuomo, saying, “the outlook has changed dramatically since the release of the consensus revenue forecast by the governor and the legislature.”

Earlier this year, Cuomo unveiled a proposed $178 billion budget. A projected deficit of $6 billion, blamed on runaway Medicaid spending, already posed a huge problem for lawmakers. But they had no way of predicting the coronavirus, too.

The deadly disease on Monday caused the Dow Jones Industrial Average to incur its worst drop since the financial crash of 2008, among other economic woes, raising fears of a recession.

A particular emphasis is on food justice and ameliorating the disparate access to healthy foods in predominantly low-income neighborhoods. The expected passage of the bills comes shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled as constitutional the Trump administration’s public charge rule, making it harder for immigrants to obtain a green card when they receive public benefits like food stamps.

“The City of New York is responsible for feeding a large portion of our population, whether it’s 1.1 million public school students who are entitled to free breakfast and free lunch, or it’s people in our senior centers...or people in our shelter system who we’re feeding, or just the countless New Yorkers who rely on food assistance in the form of SNAP,” Kallos, a Manhattan Democrat, told Gotham Gazette.

ProHEALTH Care, the largest independent, physician-run health system in the nation, hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open the first pediatric-only urgent care in Manhattan. Council Member Ben Kallos joined Zeyad Baker, M.D., president & CEO of ProHEALTH Care, to cut the ribbon, along with Dr. Baker’s two children to welcome the new pediatric urgent care to the community. In addition, ProHEALTH Care will host a special community day on Saturday, February 1, 2020 from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m., featuring free vision and hearing screenings, giveaways, and activities for kids. As part of Optum, the ProHEALTH Pediatric Urgent Care represents Optum’s first clinical entrance into Manhattan.

NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — A bill to ban the use of toxic pesticides in New York City parks is up for a vote in the City Council on Wednesday.

The bill, which was proposed in 2019, has generated a slew of support from across the five boroughs.

As WCBS 880’s Rich Lamb reported, supporters stood on the steps of City Hall chanting, “No Roundup. No glyphosates. Stop spraying in our parks.”

Councilman Ben Kallos, who proposed the legislation, says the pesticides are harmful to the environment and humans.

“We’ve been working for five years since 2015. When we were ready to introduce the legislation in 2016, the World Health Organization had just announced that glyphosate, a neuro-disruptor and the active ingredient in Monsanto Roundup was a likely carcinogen,” he said.

The weed killer has been linked to leukemia and lymphoma and the manufacturer has settled multiple lawsuits from those who had used the herbicide.  

“Our goal is to ban this from our parks straight and simple,” he said

The measure has 34 co-sponsors, a veto-proof supermajority and the de Blasio administration now says it supports it.

New York City Council Member Ben Kallos first introduced legislation to ban glyphosate (and all chemical pesticides) from city parks in 2015, shortly after the World Health Organization’s verdict that it’s unsafe. During the legislation’s hearing in September 2017, dozens of elementary-school children crowded City Hall to testify their support. The legislation failed, but Kallos and Carlina Rivera reintroduced it in April, just before the EPA classified the chemical as safe. The bill has 24 sponsors; it needs 34 to guarantee a hearing.

The City Council is set to consider a number of bills related to food policy at a hearing Wednesday, including a proposal to codify an Office of Food Policy, a month after Council Speaker Corey Johnson unveiled an expansive food equity plan with the creation of the office at its center.