Two top Big Apple lawmakers are demanding that Mayor Eric Adams’ administration officials answer for what the city pols are calling an “inadequate” response to the recent monkeypox outbreak.
The request comes hours following The Post reporting on frustration about City Hall’s abandonment of its system used for COVID-19 shots, and two days after the online one for registering to be vaccinated against the disease shut down.
Meanwhile, local and federal officials enacted major revisions to their initial response to the outbreak.
Councilwoman Jennifer Gutiérrez, head of the body’s technology committee, and Councilwoman Lynn Schulman, chair of its health committee, on Thursday asked Speaker Adrienne Adams to hold an emergency oversight hearing on the problem-plagued monkeypox vaccine rollout.
“The City’s response to the monkeypox public health crisis has been wholly inadequate and deeply inequitable,” Gutiérrez — who represents parts of Ridgewood, Williamsburg and Bushwick — said in an exclusive statement to The Post.
“Given the Mayor’s investments in reorganizing and rebranding the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications as the Office of Technology and Innovation, it is deeply concerning that they are not leading the technological aspects of the vaccine response,” she added.
“This administration dissolved our Covid defense infrastructure as cases continue to rise, and they are approaching the issue of monkeypox seemingly without incorporating any previous learnings about the importance of a robust, widely accessible vaccine platform.”
The tally in the five boroughs hit 336 reported total cases on Wednesday — up 113 from the 223 recorded two days before. There are now five City Council members calling for hearings, including Chi Ossé of Brooklyn and Erik Botcher of lower Manhattan.
Schulman — who represents Rego Park, Forest Hills and adjoining neighborhoods — declared that the spread of monkeypox “should be met with adequate supplies, communication, and resources,” while lamenting that LGBTQ New Yorkers have “once again been dealt an empty hand that we remember from the traumatic days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.”
“The needs of the LGBTQIA+ community need to be put at the forefront so history does not repeat itself, and as Health Chair I will stand with the LGBTQIA+ community in holding the City accountable for these shortcomings and ensuring the needs of our community are appropriately addressed moving forward,” her statement continued.
Later Thursday, Speaker Adams indicated she is open to holding a hearing.
“We’re very disturbed by those crashes,” she said during a press conference, in response to a question from a Post reporter. “We’ve gone through this drill before with COVID, so it’s something that we’re definitely looking into.”
“This is why the Council is here, for those checks and balances on the agencies.”
Also Thursday afternoon, the city Health Department revealed that it is switching to the city-built mass vaccination system to handle future monkeypox appointments — a major course correction by the agency amid growing frustration over the Adams administration’s handling of the outbreak.
The demand from the pair of council chairs comes the day after The Post reported that while City Hall last year arranged for a system, Vax4NYC, that could handle the number of Big Apple residents signing up to get inoculated against COVID-19, it had remained on the shelf during the monkeypox outbreak.
Instead, the Department of Health again chose to use vendors whose technology can’t withstand the demand for monkeypox shot appointments, causing exasperation among activists and former city officials.
The story came on the heels of the city’s computer system to register for monkeypox vaccinations melting down on Tuesday.
The site didn’t function for almost one hour after registration for shots opened, and snafus delays continued to snarl the system throughout the day.
It also came on the heels of The Post reported last week that the Food and Drug Administration’s failure to inspect the plant in Denmark and its subsequent refusal to accept the inspections performed by European regulators had left 1 million monkeypox vaccine doses in a state of uncertainty.
Late Wednesday, the FDA announced it had conducted the inspection of the plant and would allow the importation of the shots to begin. FDA officials said they expect to finalize the paperwork and begin to distribute the doses by the end of the month.
