NYC Was Badly Unprepared For Pandemic, Comptroller Report Finds

NEW YORK, NY — New York City was badly unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic, relying on a years-old draft plan to dictate its response and lacking ways to count hospital beds or coordinate between agencies, according to a new report by the city comptroller.

The report by Comptroller Scott Stringer's office was released Wednesday following a yearlong investigation. But it remains incomplete, he said, because city agencies have refused to turn over key documents and witnesses.

Still, it provides a window into the city's scramble to contain the virus during the early months of 2020, when officials discovered that the only plan they had was a 2013 draft created by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

That plan was "not particularly useful," a high-level DOHMH official told investigators, because it was so incomplete, lacking plans for supply chains, public health messaging and other "major policy issues."

Other shortcomings included an inability to count the number of open hospital beds and pieces of personal protective equipment at a given moment, as well as an adequate supply of N95 masks. (The city's N95 stockpile, it turned out, had expired years earlier.)

City agencies were slow to respond once COVID-19 arrived, the report found: officials did not begin planning for a moderate to severe outbreak until "mid-to-late February 2020."

"[A]t this point the only planning we have done is in regards to notifications if a suspected case comes here," an official from the city's Emergency Management office wrote in a Jan. 23 email obtained by investigators.

It was not until March 2020, weeks after the virus arrived, that agencies began to seriously coordinate efforts, the report found.

Stringer, whose job includes auditing city agencies like the Mayor's Office, implied that blame fell at the feet of Mayor Bill de Blasio.

"We can never forget who and what we lost, and we cannot erase the mistakes of the past," said Stringer, whose own mother died from COVID-19. "But we can make sure that we are better prepared for future public health emergencies and the next pandemic."

Asked about the report Wednesday morning, de Blasio said he had not read it, but defended his administration's response.

"There’s no way to fully understand a global pandemic until you’re in it," he said. "None of us anticipated anywhere anything like this. And we needed federal leadership that wasn’t there, but the public in public service made things happen and made sure that care was there for people."

Read the full report at the City Comptroller's website.