The beleaguered New York City Fire Department took to Twitter Wednesday to urge hysterical New Yorkers with runny noses to only call 911 in cases of real emergency.
“If you are not severely ill, allow first responders to assist those most in need,” a Fire Department spokesman told panicked New Yorkers in a video posted to Twitter.
In addition, around 30% of FDNY’s Emergency Medical Services personnel are out sick with COVID as well as around 17% of its firefighters.
The FDNY EMS currently has 30% of its members out sick, a spokesperson tells @NBCNews and 17% of firefighters are out sick as well. @Tom_Winter
— Susan Kroll (@suekroll) December 29, 2021
New York City added just under 40,000 new cases on Wednesday, and more than 100,000 New Yorkers have tested positive since Christmas Eve, the Times reported.
“It’s pretty obvious that people who worked themselves into a neuroses are having an emotional spiral in light of their positive test and mild symptoms, and clogging up essential services,” National Review writer Michael Brendan Dougherty wrote on Twitter.
It’s pretty obvious that people who worked themselves into a neuroses are having an emotional spiral in light of their positive test and mild symptoms, and clogging up essential services. We need to slow the spread of mental illness. pic.twitter.com/83PYjqaS19
— Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) December 30, 2021
The relative mildness of omicron, however, led out-going Mayor Bill de Blasio to shy away from issuing new lockdown orders or canceling the Times Square New Year’s Eve ball drop.
Incoming Mayor Eric Adams recently introduced a “winter plan” that will take effect as soon as he is sworn in on January 1, 2022.
The plan will keep in place de Blasio’s vaccine mandate for private-sector employers, but will focus on “compliance, not punishment” in its enforcement.
