Hochul vows swift action as she takes helm in New York

Islam News — Kathy Hochul became the first female governor of New York on Tuesday and in her first hours on the job sought to bring a sense of urgency to tackling big problems that went unaddressed during Andrew Cuomo’s distracted final months in office.

In an afternoon speech in which she laid out her initial priorities, the Democrat promised swift action to improve COVID-19 safety in schools, a fix for broken aid programs for people hit by the pandemic and improved government ethics.

Hochul said she was directing state health officials to make masks mandatory for anyone entering public or private schools. Her administration will also work, she said, to implement a requirement that all school staff statewide either be vaccinated or undergo weekly COVID-19 testing.

“None of us want a rerun of last year’s horrors with COVID-19,” Hochul said. “Therefore we will take proactive steps to prevent that from happening.”

Hochul pledged quick action to unstick an application bottleneck that has kept federal aid money from flowing to renters who suffered financially because of the pandemic. She said she’s readying the state to distribute vaccine booster shots, when they become widely available, including possibly reopening mass inoculation sites. And she said New Yorkers “can expect new vaccine requirements,” though she didn’t specify what those might be.

“More on that soon,” she said.

Hochul, a former member of Congress from western New York, took the oath of office just after midnight in a brief, private event overseen by the state’s chief judge, Janet DiFiore.

Source: AP NEWS