NYC Spending $28M On ‘disease detectives’ to Prep for Potential Polio, Ebola, COVID Outbreaks; Top Aide to Rep. Pat Ryan Mismanaged COVID Relief Funds: Audit, and other C-Virus related stories
NYC spending $28M on ‘disease detectives’ to prep for potential polio, ebola, COVID outbreaks:
The city will spend nearly $30 million on “disease detectives” and other health pros in preparation for nightmarish potential outbreaks — including new COVID-19 variants, mpox, ebola and polio — The Post has learned.
The city awarded $28 million in two-year contracts to a pair of temp agencies, who will scour the country to provide 48 licensed laboratory technicians, clinicians and disease investigators to assist with detecting diseases and testing antibiotic resistance, among other services, according to a Health Department spokesman.
“New variants of COVID-19 are likely to emerge in the fall/winter, along with other infectious disease outbreaks such as polio and Ebola, causing extensive strain on personnel if temps are unable to be utilized to support NYC’s response activities,” the agency said in public notices.
The solicitations came amid the city’s exploding migrant crisis, with more than 125,000 people having poured into the Big Apple since April 2022.
Earlier this year, city Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan warned about half of the migrants entering the city were unvaccinated for polio and that many were coming from or passing countries with high rates of infectious tuberculosis.
Bill Hammond, senior fellow for health policy at the government watchdog group Empire Center for Public Policy, said that an influx of tens of thousands of individuals unvaccinated for contagious — and deadly — diseases is cause for concern. —>READ MORE HERE
Top aide to Rep. Pat Ryan mismanaged COVID relief funds: audit
A top aide to Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan has been accused of mismanaging roughly $400,000 in COVID-19 relief funds — resulting in about half the grants going to ineligible businesses.
Tim Weidemann, a former president of the Ulster County Economic Development Alliance, “either misunderstood or intentionally miscommunicated to the public,” the program requirements, resulting in many applicants believing they were eligible when they weren’t, an audit from the county comptroller’s office found last month.
There were “significant failures in governance, inadequate internal controls, and poor oversight within the Ulster County Economic Development Alliance,” under Weidemann’s leadership, auditors found.
The program, CARES II, was designed to provide grants of up to $35,000 to small and mid-size businesses with cash taken from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act.
Weidemann, a political appointee from then-Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan, was responsible for “significant failures in governance,” the audit concluded. —>READ MORE HERE
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