Acting Queens borough president in an
unexpected battle due to COVID-19 crisis
Acting Queens Borough President Sharon Lee at a recent meeting. File photo by Max Parrott/QNS
BY TODD MAISEL
Acting Queens Borough
President Sharon Lee stepped
into the role after Melinda
Katz won election to District
Attorney. Lee had served as
deputy since 2014 before stepping
into her current role,
which will now last beyond
the intended date as the Mach
24 election was postponed to
June because of the COVID-19
crisis.
She’s in a battle she could
never have foreseen.
“We’ve been working
around the clock, trying to get
some relief to the most vulnerable
areas of the borough,
not just hospitals, but nursing
homes, dialysis center and
community health facilities,”
Lee said. “It is more important
now that Borough Hall
is still serving constituents
— especially in this time of
crisis — it is more imperative
than ever that government
continues to run as reliable
that it can be.”
Lee has been evaluating
the data coming from the
Health Department, giving
Queens the dubious distinction
of having the highest
rates of COVID-19, its main
hospital in Elmhurst being the
center of attention as doctors
and nurses struggle to treat
the sick while finding enough
PPE to protect themselves.
But she also realizes that a
lot of people are not being tested,
and she wondered whether
the lack of testing was skewing
results for areas of the
Bronx where she said death
rates are at 4 percent and rising
rapidly.
“We are hearing that it
takes at least a week before
people are getting results
of tests, and we hear heartwrenching
TIMESLEDGER | 2 QNS.COM | APR. 10-16, 2020
stories of people
dying before the results arrive,”
Lee said.
She said Queens infections
have been more difficult to
contain because “sometimes
people are doubling and tripling
up in their homes and it
is impossible for a lot of folks
to isolate themselves when
they have one bathroom for
five people.”
She continued, “Then
whole families are getting
sick or infected. Some people
go to the hospital and are discharged,
but then the worst
thing for them to do is to go
home.”
Lee is pushing for city,
state and federal funding to
get hotel rooms for people to
isolate when they are unable
to do so at home. The city has
been grabbing up hotel rooms,
that Lee said are mostly empty
because there are no tourists.
While her office has been
seeking more PPE’s for medical
centers and facilities, she
said it was heartwarming to
see Queens College was able
to obtain dozens of boxes of
PPE’s that the Office Of Emergency
Management picked up
to be used in hospitals.
She also said many acts of
kindness have been occurring
across the borough, including
having hundreds of boxes of
groceries being donated by
Fresh Direct to serve “vulnerable
populations at 30 locations
across the borough.
People rely on these food pantries
and this will stave off a
deepening crisis.”
On the economic front,
she is working with the city’s
Economic Development Corporation
to fight health and
economic crisis to come.
“We are in an economic crisis
and we are in a recession
and we are trying to stave off a
depression,” Lee said. “Unemployment
is at historic highs
and our small businesses are
deeply hurt.”
So her office is coordinating
home-cooked meals,
individually wrapped to be
dropped at nine hospitals. She
says many businesses and individuals
want to donate coffee,
donuts, so they are coordinating
pick-ups and deliveries
while “being careful not to be
getting in the way.”
“We are seeing the best and
worst – but there is some good
and my office is doing its best
in a dire situation. Once we
flatten the curse and get past
the apex, the economic crisis
may take longer to get over
and businesses and cultural
institutions may not make
it. We try to offer stability,
continuity and predictability
where we can.”
FLUSHING TIMES (USPS#03925) is published weekly by Queens CNG LLC, 38-15 Bell Boulevard, Bayside, NY 11361, (718) 229-0300. The entire contents of this publication are copyright 2020. All rights reserved.
The newspaper will not be liable for errors appearing in any advertising beyond the cost of the space occupied by the error. Periodicals postage paid at Flushing, N.Y. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the
FLUSHING TIMES C/O Queens CNG LLC 38-15 Bell Boulevard, Bayside, N.Y. 11361
/QNS.COM
