Coronavirus kills over 100 NYC civil servants unable to work from home

The coronavirus is ravaging the city’s public workforce, killing more than 100 civil servants — many who did not have the luxury of working from home.

Those toiling at the MTA have suffered the greatest toll, with 50 dead from COVID-19 including supervisors, bus drivers, train conductors and cleaners.

At the high point, more than 6,000 MTA workers were in quarantine, a number that dropped to 5,200 Friday, with 1,846 testing positive. The transit agency began taking the temperatures of workers, who are state employees, at locations throughout the city and said it would send home anyone with a fever greater than 100.4 degrees.

The virus has struck down dozens of teachers, paraprofessionals and other school workers.

While the Department of Education continues to refuse to release a count of dead or infected employees, the teachers’ union says more than 40 members have perished. At least one principal, Dez-Ann Romain, and one assistant principal, Omara Flores, have died.

“I am imploring the mayor to make this information public immediately,” said City Councilman Mark Treyger, education committee chairman. Treyger has requested a bill to require the DOE to report its COVID-19 cases.

Mayor de Blasio has failed to track illnesses and hidden the DOE data to avoid responsibility for delaying the closure of city schools, Treyger said. “His policies helped advance widespread community transmission.”

Sharon Nearby, 52, a 6th-grade English teacher at IS 24 in Staten Island, died April 4 after a week in Staten Island University Hospital, spending her last days on a ventilator. Her husband and twin 14-year-old daughters could not be at her side.

Nearby spent most of her 30-year DOE career at the South Shore school, where she held high expectations for students, her husband Jeff said. “She was very loved. She was consistent and honest. And she made classes as fun as she could.”

Jeff Nearby believes Sharon contracted the virus on March 12 or 13, when teachers citywide conducted parent conferences remotely amid the outbreak. But teachers came in and worked together in the rooms making the calls. Sharon later learned a teacher in her room had tested positive.

New York’s Finest have lost 19 members, the latest Detective Jack V. Polimeni, a 23-year NYPD veteran assigned to the warrant squad. He was the third officer to die. The NYPD also lost 16 civilian employees. That includes five school safety agents, said Gregory Floyd, president of the Teamsters Local 237, their union.

Floyd faulted de Blasio for his late decision to close schools, and keeping them open for staff training and for kids to pick up supplies through March 19.

“We’re not going to blame him for people getting sick, but we’re going to blame him for his response,” Floyd said.

His union also represents officers who patrol public housing for NYCHA, and the city’s homeless shelters, which he called “a breeding ground for coronavirus.”

Workers lack masks and hand sanitizer, he said. Clients who roam the neighborhood and take the subway walk in and out. “There’s no social distancing,” he said.

NYCHA and the Human Resources Administration, which includes homeless services, did not respond to questions about COVID-19 cases.

District Council 37, which also represents workers at HRA, said five employees in that agency had died of the virus.

In a grim tally, the Department of Corrections has lost four officers and three non-uniformed members, a spokeswoman said. The Correction Officers union put the death toll at 10.

Nearly 500 corrections workers have tested positive for the virus along with 288 inmates, the agency said.

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The Administration for Children’s Services said four workers have died, while 121 other employees have tested positive for COVID-19. Another 173 have symptoms.

At least four employees at the overwhelmed Health + Hospital system have died, according to District Council 37. It said 300 members are quarantining and about two dozen have been hospitalized.

The hospital workers who died included Priscilla Carrow, the coordinating manager at Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, which was an epicenter of the outbreak.

“Our members are exhausted,” said Henry Garrido, the union’s executive director. “They’re working long hours. Many have concerns about their families. They’re afraid of bringing the stuff home.”

Garrido said the city needed to provide more personal protective equipment “to those who aren’t necessarily on the front lines. . . orderlies or lab workers.”

The Sanitation Department lost one worker, 46-year-old Raymond Copeland, who was based in Queens and died April 5. The father of three and grandfather of two had been with the agency since 2014.

“He was part of our dysfunctional but loving family, from cracking jokes, to partying or even, the occasional heartfelt discussions about family or the job,” a colleague wrote on a GoFundMe page to help Copeland’s family.

A total of 390 DSNY employees have tested positive for the virus and, of those, 46 have resumed working, the department said.

In some cases the official tallies are incomplete.

Garrido said the union had lost three members at the Parks Department. A department spokeswoman said that three employees had died, but said they were not confirmed cases of the coronavirus.