#NYC’s pandemic program bug problem

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Executive Director Ted Long, Test and Trace Corps, denied recent media report that the city’s contact-tracing program got off to a rocky start.
NYC Mayoral Photography Office

We’d have more hope that school reopening will come off if other city pandemic programs were showing fewer bugs.

The much-heralded GetFoodNYC saw at least two black eyes this week: On Monday, 34 unopened boxes of meals turned up on the side of a Queens underpass. The resident who spotted them called 311 and was told they’d be picked up, but more than eight hours later they were still lying there.

That news prompted a Brooklyn woman to alert The Post that four to five boxes of unwanted meals a week have been showing up at her home since May, despite many calls to 311. Our coverage apparently got the error fixed — but how many other mis-delivered meals have gone to waste?

More troubling is a New York Times account of the beyond-rocky start to the city’s contact-tracing program. On private message boards, newly hired contact tracers shared serious worries. One wrote, “I don’t think this is the type of job we should just ‘wing it,’ and that’s the sense I’ve been getting sometimes.” Another: “The lack of communication and organization is crazy.”

But the worst problems came in the first six weeks, and the program’s now two months old. “All signs indicate that the program has been effective in helping the city avoid the resurgence we’re seeing in other states,” says mayoral spokeswoman Avery Cohen.

As ever with City Hall, it’s: Cross your fingers, and hope they get it right in time.