NYC Mayor-elect Eric Adams voices ‘hope’ for safe ending to school mask mandate

NEW YORK — Mayor-elect Eric Adams said Sunday he would like to see mask mandates at schools lifted by the end of the academic year, now that children are eligible for COVID-19 vaccines.

“Not being able to see the smiles of our children, I believe that has a major impact,” New York City’s incoming mayor said on CNN.

He sounded a different tone than outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said on Thursday that he wanted to keep the school mask mandate in place, at least in the short term, “out of an abundance of caution.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week approved the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 5 to 11.

“If we can find a safe way to do it, I look forward to getting rid of the mask, but it must be done with the science,” Adams said. “Part of the development of socialization of a child is that smile.”

Adams also had advice for Democrats around the country, saying they need to focus on practical goals to avoid further losses at the polls.

He cited the $1 trillion infrastructure bill passed in the House of Representatives on Friday as an illustration of what Democrats can do to tackle real problems, Adams said.

“We should be known for what we did, the infrastructure bill,” Adams told CNN.

Democrats around the country have been looking to the Big Apple for lessons since Adams won the Democratic mayoral primary in June, beating progressive rivals with his tough-on-crime message.

Last week, Democrats lost a key election in Virginia, while the Democratic governor of New Jersey was reelected by just a razor-thin margin. The state Senate president there, Democrat Steve Sweeney, lost reelection to a Republican newcomer.

“You can’t classify New Yorkers,” Adams said. “One day we wake up and feel one way; [then] we feel another way.

“They’re going to see … a person that comes in the spirit of everyday New Yorkers and the complexity of what is to be in a city like New York, he said. “This is going to be an exciting four years for all New Yorkers.”

Adams jumped to some of his long-standing priorities.

“We have rats that are running rampant in our city — not picking up the garbage,” he said. “Public safety is really a real problem. … We need to get back to the basics.”

Prior to the pandemic, Adams gave a now-famous news conference as Brooklyn borough president in which he called for a crackdown on rats. He gleefully displayed a device that caught and drowned dozens of rodents in September 2019.

Speaking on NPR on Sunday, he reiterated his promise to deploy the device from a pilot program that used a vat of caustic liquid to kill the pests.

“When I knock on doors and speak to residents in this city, you know what they say? ‘We’re tired of these darn rats,’” he said. “I’m going to reintroduce the device that I used [in] a pilot project.

“We have a real rodent problem, and those in economically challenged communities, they’re receiving the brunt of it,” he said.

He also explained his plans, announced last week, to take his first three paychecks in the form of bitcoin.

“We are living in a city that used to be the Empire State. Now we destroy empires,” Adams said. “We’re too bureaucratic, too expensive and too difficult to do business in.

“Let’s move away from a city with a culture of what we can’t do,” he said. “I want all of the new innovations and technology to come here.”

———