New York, Jan 4 (IANS): An expert has called on New York City to set up a comprehensive plan, positively respond to economic crisis together with health emergency and help communities play a bigger role in the fight against the 10-month-long Covid-19, so that the city can recover from the pandemic better and stronger, New York Daily News reported on Sunday.
"The key to recovery from any disaster is to quickly unify around a recovery plan," said Kathyrn Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, a non-profit organization that works with the city's business leaders, government, labour and the civic sector to make a better New York.
"We have not done that, in some ways because the disaster is ongoing. Part of that is a leadership problem. Part of that is the nature of the disaster," she added.
Wylde has seen the city rebound before. From her front-row seat as president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, she watched the five boroughs recover from a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 and the superstorm Hurricane Sandy that wreaked havoc on the city in 2012, the Xinhua news agency reported.
The city has responded admirably to the health emergency, but has left it largely up to others to respond to the economic crisis, which, in the long run, might not be so bad, according to Wylde.
"These groups are finding out that they basically have to figure out the solution themselves," she explained. "Leaders are going to come together and turn their solutions into public policy. I've been doing that anecdotally, connecting these grass roots initiatives. I think it's going to become the new way to approach problem solving instead of calling 311 and waiting for a government agency to come and fix their problem."
Wylde also said New Yorkers have become overly dependent on local government to solve their problems.
"In the 70s the government was broke and had nothing to offer but to get out of the way," Wylde said. "Communities had to figure it out and solve their own problems. I really do think that same phenomenon is going to take place as a result of this experience."
New York City's Covid-19 test positivity rate on a seven-day average reached 9.08 percent, compared with 9.39 percent one day earlier, Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted on Sunday.
The rate was announced on Jan. 1 to top 9 per cent, on December 31 to top 8 per cent and on December 27 to top 7 per cent. It topped 3 per cent in late November, which was believed by the city government to signify the arrival of a second wave of the coronavirus, and has remained above the level ever since.
As of Saturday evening, the coronavirus deaths added up to 25,211 and confirmed cases to 4,36,581 in NYC, according to The City, a project that tracks the spread of confirmed Covid-19 infections and fatalities in New York City, based on information provided by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the governor's office, The Covid Tracking Project and the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.