Help for New York City

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio appealed to U.S. President Joe Biden on Sunday for urgent aid to the metropolis due to a spike in COVID-19 infections there. The reporting Politico newspaper noted that more than 5,000 new cases of the coronavirus infection were reported in the city on Saturday alone, the rate of spread of which has increased significantly with the arrival of the omicron strain.

Due to the new pandemic outbreak, the newspaper said, a number of Christmas events have already been cancelled in the city and the traditional mass New Year's Eve party in Times Square has been called into question a decision on whether it will take place will be made by de Blasio later this week.

"We need help right now and we need a rapid increase in support as far as monoclonal antibody treatments are concerned. We need New York City to be given more opportunities to get help," the publication quoted the mayor as saying at a briefing.

In particular, de Blasio urged Biden to use the Defense Production Act of 1950 (enacted when the Korean War began, among other things, to broadly mobilize the country's defense capabilities) to provide New Yorkers with more home tests to detect coronavirus infection and opportunities for treatment with monoclonal antibodies. The mayor also asked the president to expedite the approval process for Pfizer's antiviral pills as quickly as possible.

De Blasio said that in response to the rise in COVID-19, city officials have allocated $10 million for a marketing campaign designed to encourage more New Yorkers to get vaccinated and revaccinated. "We urgently need to act," he said.

The mayor anticipated that the number of cases of coronavirus infection in the city would increase significantly in the coming weeks because of the omicron strain, but expressed hope that this surge in incidence would be short-lived and not as severe in its effects as it was a year ago. "We do not expect a repeat of the tragic reality we witnessed in spring 2020 or even last winter," de Blasio was quoted as saying.