It's Tuesday. We'll look at Mayor Bill de Blasio's changes on Covid-19 testing plans in schools and quarantine rules when students test positive. |
 | | Anna Watts for The New York Times |
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Parents know to expect some tweaking at the beginning of the school year. Sometimes a child is moved to a different class, or an entire grade's lunch period is shuffled — changes that are all but forgotten by the time the first report card is sent home. |
On Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced two tweaks that probably won't be forgotten so quickly. He said that schools would require weekly coronavirus testing of unvaccinated students, up from every other week now. |
He also said that unvaccinated students would no longer have to stay home after contact with a classmate who tested positive — if the exposure occurred when the unvaccinated children were wearing masks and they had remained at least three feet apart from the infected pupil. |
But de Blasio again resisted calls for a vaccine mandate for students, even as Pfizer-BioNTech moved toward making its vaccine available to children 5 to 11 years old. |
As my colleague Emma Fitzsimmons noted, the mayor is set on keeping as many children in classrooms as possible. As he heads toward the final 100 days of his two terms in City Hall, de Blasio seems to be staking his legacy on seeing that the school system stays the course despite the pandemic — by keeping the schools open and keeping large numbers of students and teachers from getting sick. |
De Blasio has flatly ruled out a return to online classes. "The chancellor and I fundamentally believe that our kids need to be in school," he said on Monday, referring to the schools chancellor, Meisha Porter. "That's why there is not a broad remote option in place." In the past, the mayor has maintained that remote learning is inherently inferior, a conviction echoed by many education experts and teachers. |
Still, the online option remains popular elsewhere. A national survey by the job site Indeed found that 65 percent of parents whose children had a remote option have taken advantage of it. (Indeed questioned 1,002 parents who work full time and have at least one child younger than 17 in school.) |
Savor another sunny day in the mid-70s, New York. Temps will in the high 60s tonight, with a chance of showers that might stay for the rest of the week. |
Suspended today and tomorrow (Sukkot). |
The U.N. General Assembly is in session. That means gridlock alert days. |
 | | Pool photo by John Angelillo |
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Tuesday is the second of 19 gridlock alert days in 2021, days when the city tells drivers to stay off the roads. But still there are horn-honking, time-wasting traffic jams, especially on the East Side of Manhattan. |
Yes, it's time once again for the United Nations General Assembly. |
As my colleague Rick Gladstone explains, more than 100 foreign leaders and other high-ranking representatives plan to give speeches at a gathering that will be distinctly different from last year's all-virtual session. Pandemic concerns shaped the planning and will be a theme of some of the speeches: President Biden is expected to push for a global plan for vaccine-producing countries to channel more doses to nations that need them. White House officials hope that will bring fresh urgency to vaccine diplomacy at a time when Covax, the U.N.-backed vaccine program, is lagging. |
The diplomats will not only talk about the pandemic, they will have to deal with it. Everyone entering the U.N. complex on First Avenue is supposed to wear a mask. And everyone is supposed to have been vaccinated or have had a recent Covid-19 test (with a negative result). Last week, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield of the United States said that the measures were aimed at guaranteeing that the General Assembly "does not become a superspreader event." |
But how the vaccine-or-test requirement will be enforced is an open question. U.N. officials had said that V.I.P.'s will be on the honor system. |
What will President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil say, assuming he arrives on schedule for the first speech on Tuesday? He is a vaccine skeptic who early in the pandemic made light of the coronavirus as "a measly cold" and was later reprimanded by a judge for not wearing a mask at outdoor events. |
If Bolsonaro changed his mind about getting vaccinated — or just wanted a quick test — a city-run mobile testing truck will be stationed outside the U.N. It will have a supply of one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccines onboard. But someone who gets a shot and then goes inside could still spread Covid-19, because it takes weeks for immunity to build. |
As for the traffic, the police warned of street closings, detours and checkpoints on the East Side, from 42nd Street to 57th Street through the end of the month. But in a city where bikes are increasingly a part of the streetscape, bicycle access along First and Second Avenues will not be restricted. |
Eighteen months into the pandemic, the notion of gridlock around the U.N. had a back-to-the-futurish quality, as if it were September 2019 again, the last time the General Assembly met in person. This time, the Mercedes-Maybachs and Cadillacs have been lining up outside the diplomatic missions near the U.N. — supersized limousines that whisked diplomats to meetings, lunches, cocktail parties and dinners. |
Long limos were not the only vehicles in some diplomatic motorcades. Barbara Wagner, who lives on East 52nd Street, watched one procession that was trailed by a heavily armed minivan. |
"The door was open," she said. "The machine guns were pointing out." |
On Monday, a man was arrested and accused of threatening to kill the president of the Dominican Republic during his trip to New York for the General Assembly. Beyond that, law enforcement officials said there were no credible threats of an attack during the U.N. meeting, though they expected disruptions from crowds and protests. |
I was on the Q heading to a job interview. I looked down and noticed that my left sleeve was unbuttoned. I tried to button it back up a few times, but I was so nervous about the interview that my hands were shaking. |
An older woman who was sitting next to me noticed that I was struggling. |
"Do you want me to help you?" she asked softly. |
"Yes, please," I said, blushing and moving my arm toward her. |
She carefully buttoned the sleeve, and we rode in silence the rest of the way. When we got to my stop, I looked back and gave her a nod as I got off the train. She smiled back at me. |
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. |
Melissa Guerrero, Andrew Hinderaker, Rick Martinez and Olivia Parker contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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