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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. As the New York City public schools shut their doors today because of the 3% positivity rate, as we've been discussing, the Nassau and Suffolk County executives are both strongly disagreeing with Mayor de Blasio's decision to do that and to use that threshold.

The positivity rate in Nassau County is 3.5%, even higher and Suffolk, but Nassau County executive Laura Curran is leaving school closures up to the 56 local school districts in the County, and says she would only order a countywide closure if they hit 9%. That's the state standard, three times the threshold of the city is using. We'll talk about that in more now with Nassau County Executive Laura Curran. She also has an article in New York Magazine called How a Long Island County fought COVID-19. A county executive looks back at the first wave. Executive Curran, always good to have you on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Laura Curran: Good morning, Brian, and thank you very much for having me back.

Brian: Your statement says, "I strongly disagree with Mayor de Blasio's decision to close down schools in New York city. I want to make clear to our residents that I will do everything I can to keep our schools open." Why criticize the mayor by name there rather than just make your own decision for Nassau County?

Laura: I felt it was important since this is really dominating the news cycle, and of course, New York City news really dominates the news in the suburbs. I just wanted to make it very clear to our residents that the safest place for kids right now is in school. Now it's a little bit different in Nassau County. In the city, the mayor is in charge of the schools.

Out here in Nassau County we have 56 independent school districts with their own elected boards. They make their own policy and make their own decisions, of course, with guidance from the state, but my goal is to make sure that our health department, our county health department is working with them, helping interpret the guidance, helping them with contact tracing, et cetera, and we've made very good relationships.

My goal is to get the word out there, that it's very important for kids to stay in school right now. As I said, it's the safest place for kids. Our 56 school districts have really- and I have kids in public school myself, they've done a fantastic job at the social distancing and ensuring mass compliance and having kids on alternate days, and all of that. They've really recalibrated quickly, and we're not seeing transmission within the school buildings. You did mention we're at 3.5 yesterday, our latest number was 3.3%.

That is concerning because we had been down at around 1% positivity rate, but the uptick isn't happening in the schools, it's not happening in the businesses and the gyms and the bowling alleys, it's really happening at these social gatherings. I know that a lot of people have COVID fatigue, but people are still having these sweet 16s and going off to other states to have big weddings and then coming back, that's where we're seeing the uptick.

I'm saying to everyone who can hear my voice, if you're not worried about yourself, you're not worried about your family, think about the kids who need to be in school, think about the businesses that need to operate, keep people working. As I said, school is safe right now, and closing schools should be a last resort. That's what the CDC protocol say, anything like a flu-like pandemic, closing schools is the last resort. In March, it made sense. We got to that point, we're getting into 50% positivity rate. At that point, it makes sense. At this point, it just doesn't make sense.

Brian: You just went further than saying the schools shouldn't close. I saw on News 12, you had said something similar earlier, the cases you say are not coming from restaurants either, or bowling alleys, or gyms, they're mainly coming from what you just called "social gatherings." I see that you've previously singled out weddings, sweet 16s, off-campus parties and other kinds of large get-togethers. That's really interesting and important data, and different what we often hear or assume about restaurants in particular. How do you know that?

Laura: From the contact tracing that our health department does. Our health commissioner, Dr. Larry Eisenstein, he's an epidemiologist. This is what he does. This is what he knows. Looking at the numbers and looking at the data, we're not seeing it at the businesses. It really is these gatherings. We have a lot of great universities and colleges here. One university had a real uptick, and it was all traced to off-campus parties. Wasn't happening on campus. It was off-campus parties. Think about it from the business person's point of view.

If you're running a gym or you have a restaurant, you don't want to be the place where there's an outbreak. You're going to invest thousands of dollars on separation, on distancing, on filtration, on sanitation, and they have done that. No one wants to have that reputation on them, oh, this is the place where there was an outbreak. They also know that, especially when we were just starting to reopen, consumer confidence was their number one concern.

They're bending over backwards, doing what the state mandates plus to reassure their customers and their employees that it's safe, and the results speak for themselves. This is the thing that's so frustrating. We know what works. We know social distancing works. We know the masks works. We know cleaning works, and having to have more restrictions, because some aren't following those common sense guidelines that do work is very frustrating. Because, who pays the price?

Now the restaurants have to close at 10, we're looking at the possibility of less kids, less time for kids in school. Who suffers? As I say again, if you're not concerned about yourself and you're sick of the mask and you're sick of not having the sweet 16 party, or whatever it is, think about the kids who need to be in school. For their social development, for their education, for their emotional development. Again, I say this as a parent, I've spoken to many teachers who say the kids who are on full remote, some of them just drift away. They just get lost. These are precious time in their life.

Brian: Do you also disagree then with Governor Cuomo's order to close into a dining at ten o'clock every night, or what he has signaled might becoming a full indoor dining closure as the state heads more into orange zone and red zone territory?

Laura: I understand that, at the state level, something has to be done to curtail the rise in cases, everyone's goal here. Whether I disagree or not, everyone wants the same thing. We all want the cases to go down. While the outbreak isn't happening in these businesses or in the schools, they're the ones that are going to pay the price for the uptick at the social gatherings, and that's what we're seeing in Nassau County.

Brian: Listeners, if you would like to speak to Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, this is your chance. We can take some Nassau County calls for the County Executive. What do you want the county's next wave COVID response to include, or anything else you want to ask her about? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, or tweet @BrianLehrer. In your New York Magazine article, you seem very proud as you also seem here of the counties test and trace score, and the protocols that businesses, including restaurants and gyms and movie theaters and hotels, you mentioned all of them are putting in place, but then why is the virus spreading again so much?

Laura: Again, it's social gatherings. When we were starting that process of reopening, it seems like 100 years ago, but remember, phase one started, at least on Long Island, at the end of May, there were some businesses that couldn't open. I went and I actually visited them, and I saw what the gyms and the bowling alleys, et cetera, had in place. I was very confident that they could reopen. My litmus test was if I could send my mother here, who was in her 70s, I feel that I can advocate to the state for their safe reopening, same with the malls. We have a lot of malls here. They generate a lot of jobs and economic activity. They're doing it right. Again, it's those social gatherings.

Brian: Do you need more stringent standards or more stringent enforcement to attack the problem at its source with those personal gatherings?

Laura: Right. It's really helpful if people reach out to us, if they know about these events. We have, whether it's our health department or our fire marshal or a police department, go and talk to the business, because at the beginning we did have some businesses who were unclear on the rules. They would have to be visited and have a conversation.

Same with weddings. Our fire marshals, unfortunately, it had to break up some weddings. We never want to do that, but if people aren't following the guidance, number one, we're tasked with the enforcement, the state has tasked us and we take that responsibility very seriously. Number two, we see it as a cause for outbreak.

Brian: By the way, I have to correct something I said. I said, your article is in New York Magazine. It's in the New Yorker, isn't it?

Laura: Yes. I just have to say for one second, Brian, as a former newspaper reporter, The New Yorker was something I could not dare aspire to write for. I have to say, in my former life, I'm very happy to have an article in that magazine. [unintelligible 00:09:49]

Brian: In your article, and I don't want this to get lost for the immediate controversies about openings and closures, you referred to one of the heartbreaking and dangerous side effects of the pandemic food insecurity. If we consider the actual people with the disease, the effect, and everything else, the side effect, food insecurity. Did you see the images on TV last night of miles and miles of cars in Dallas, sitting there as if in big traffic jams, but not waiting for the traffic to clear? They were all in line for food relief from a food bank there. Is there in Nassau County equivalent of that?

Laura: Oh, absolutely. We had about 40% more people getting food from our food banks, and we helped coordinate, we had some federal money for this. We helped coordinate with our food banks, food drives. We did over 15 of them. I think we ended up putting food on the table of more than 30,000 families across Nassau, a week's worth of food, but it is heartbreaking.

We saw our food stamp applications, which we process, triple, from April of 19 to April of 2020. The need is real. People often think of Nassau County as affluent, but we have real pockets of vulnerability and pockets of need in normal times. The fact that we had folks who never went to a food pantry before coming, tells you, and we're actually organizing a big food drive for Thanksgiving for 3000 people.

Brian: By the way, I should say that despite how staunch you're sounding here this morning about wanting to keep most things open in your New York article about fighting COVID-19, you mentioned getting yelled at by a guy driving by you in his car who recognized you and yelled, "Open the f-ing county." How much virus denial or Trumpy liberate Michigan politics would you say there are in Nassau County?

Laura: We have the full spectrum from people emailing us daily about mask violations to that guy driving his pickup truck, yelling, "Open the f-ing county." We've got it all. My goal is not to preach to people and harangue them, because everyone knows a mask works. We don't have to say that 47,000 times a day. Everyone knows what to do. Again, I encourage people, I thank them for the great job that they're doing. I also want to appeal to people's shared sense of community. "We're in this together" became a cliche, but it's really true. "We're in this together" also translates to advocating for our businesses. These businesses employ people, restaurants employ people. That's what keeps our economy going. That's what pays for the county services. One thing I wanted to get across in this New Yorker article is, the state does the mandates, and there are various levels of government, but it's the counties that really are on the front lines doing the work.

We're are the ones with the health department doing the testing and tracing. We made sure that we got testing in minority communities that were hit hardest. We're the ambulances and the medics, we've got the morgue that had to lease the refrigerated trucks. We're the ones with the police department, with tracing down scams that people were doing related to COVID. We're the ones who are tasked with doing the actual work of combating this virus.

Brian: There've been reports from [unintelligible 00:13:10] this week of people in the hospital. Some literally on their death beds saying, "COVID is a hoax" right to their own last breaths. I'm curious if you're seeing more COVID denial and resistance to wearing masks, and things like that, in the Trump-supporting South Shore towns where the Reopen Movement is stronger, and there's more resistance to mask and staying apart than in the rest of the county.

Laura: There is a little bit of that. My plea to them is, okay, you're not worried about yourself. However, we know that if the numbers do go up, the state will impose further restrictions, and nobody wants that. That's a message that I think does not necessarily put people off.

Brian: Here's a mailman who lives in Nassau County. Danny, you're on WNYC. Hi, Danny. Danny, are you there? Danny, once. Danny, twice. Ray in Sea Cliff, you're on WNYC with County Executive Laura Curran. Hi, Ray.

Ray: Hi, County Executive. This is Ray [unintelligible 00:14:19]. Hi, Brian, how are you?

Brian: Good, thank you.

Ray: County Executive, my question is, how is the county fairing financially during this COVID crisis?

Laura: Oh, hi, Ray. Yes. Thanks for that question. 40% of our revenue comes from sales tax. That revenue of course pays for the health department and the police and paving the roads and everything that we do. We did have a surplus, we've been pretty fiscally disciplined. I had about $112 million surplus getting into this. We are able to refinance our debt, using all of the tools available to us at these very low-interest rates.

We're able to have a budget, keep the services without raising taxes or cutting services, just continuing to maintain this fiscal discipline. We're waiting, perhaps fruitlessly, in vain, for help from Washington. There's a lot of dysfunction right now, and this is a real political football. Help from the federal government would be great. It's been shown that we can't count on it.

Brian: Ray, thank you for your call. I saw that in your New Yorker article that you referred to big county spending goals that you're having to put on hold to pay for COVID 19 expenses. One of them is revitalizing downtowns. President Trump was really running explicitly against having downtown density and suburban counties like Nassau. He was stoking anti-Black and brown racism for political gain, it looked like to me. Why do you think revitalizing downtowns, as you call it, is good for Nassau County?

Laura: Oh, it's key to our success, pre-COVID and post-COVID. We need affordable housing for young people, for empty nester around our train stations. I'm just praying that people start riding the train again. It's really the lifeblood of our economy and our neighborhoods here. There's been some success, a great success in some of our communities with transit-oriented development with walkable towns. That's what young people want, where the young people go, the businesses come, they want to go where the cool kids are.

We spent a lot of money on education here, and then, unfortunately, too many of our young people just leave. Vibrant downtowns are key to our success before COVID, and I think even more so now.

Brian: Anna in Bellmore, you're on WNYC with County Executive Laura Curran. Hi, Anna. Alana, I'm sorry. It's Alana.

Alana: Alana, yes. Hi. I wanted to thank the county executive for trying to keep schools open. I have a six-year-old too, is going to school full time. When he overheard on the news about the city schools closing down, he said, "Oh, no, I hope my school won't close." I also work for the Department of Education. I do understand how things go, but I'm very happy that- I hope things [unintelligible 00:17:25]. I hope everybody here plays a role because, unfortunately, the people who will be upset when, if they do have to close schools, hopefully, aren't the people who are out having 20 people at their [unintelligible 00:17:43].

Brian: Is your district, Alana, hybrid, is your child in school for some days and learning from home some days?

Alana: No. It's pretty much the same as school has always been. My son has some special needs, and he gets services at school too. Everything's been 100% almost the same, except for social distancing.

Brian: Alana, thank you so much. It's nice to get a thank-you call once in a while on a talk show. Isn't it, county executive?

Laura: It is. It is. One doesn't expect that. Alana, thanks for calling. Bellmore is a great district. I think about these little kids, kindergartners and first graders learning from home, maybe the parents aren't around, they're not getting the support. Kids need that social interaction desperately. That's why it's the last resort option when we're really up against it.

Brian: Alana is happy that her kids go to school in Nassau County. I think our next caller [unintelligible 00:18:53] in Queens wants his kid to be able to. [unintelligible 00:18:57], you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Caller 3: Hi, Brian, how are you? Thank you for answering my call.

Brian: Sure.

Caller 3: [unintelligible 00:19:05] some schools in Nassau County. [unintelligible 00:19:11] schools precisely. I can't remember the name now. [unintelligible 00:19:16] to the school. [unintelligible 00:19:17] school for your children to try to go by [unintelligible 00:19:20] or as someone that's just going to school. I was [unintelligible 00:19:26] on the website that you have to be a resident of that particular district of Nassau County. Is [unintelligible 00:19:33] reason behind that, or is it by law?

Brian: Did you say your child is a newborn?

Caller 3: Yes.

Brian: You are one organized parent, [unintelligible 00:19:43] Looking three, four years down the road. Why does the county line matter, county executive? Why does somebody who lives so near the Nassau County line in Queens, as he says he does, get prohibited from looking for a school just near his house, but over that artificial border?

Laura: Most school districts, if you live outside of the district, you can pay tuition to go to the school.

Brian: Thanks a lot.

Laura: The point of that is if you live within a school district, you have the power to vote on your budget, that budget covers your community, it doesn't cover anyone else. We do find that in some districts, we've got great schools on Long Island, sometimes folks will find a way to get their kids if they don't live in the district to go to that school, but you have to think about it. We pay very high property taxes, about 60% to 70% of the property taxes go to your local school. The school districts want to make sure that every single penny goes to the local kids.

Brian: Let's talk a little politics. Suffolk County went for Trump, Suffolk went for Trump. Nassau County had Trump ahead after the in-person votes were counted election night. Now that the absentee votes have been tallied, with Democrats more tending to vote absentee in Nashville, like everywhere, I'm seeing Biden won the county, and also this just got declared yesterday, Congressman Tom Suozzi came back from behind and held his North Shore congressional district, but Trump made "saving the suburbs," a centerpiece of his campaign. What do you learn from these results about what resonates with different groups in Nassau County and how polarized it is?

Laura: It's very interesting. Yes, on election night, Trump was ahead. Now, with 99% of all the absentee ballots counted, Biden's leading by eight points in Nassau County.

Brian: Oh, that much.

Laura: Yes, and so he beat Hillary four years ago, she led by six points. The thing that was the most interesting is that the absentee ballots, and a lot of people voted absentee, they broke up to about 70% dem in some of our communities. That was the biggest surprise, more blanks, and independent voters than expected leaned Democrat, which I thought was interesting. We've been reading about the national press that Biden did better than expected in the suburbs. Nassau County were America's quintessential suburb, so that rule held here as well.

Brian: Eileen in Port Washington, you're on WNYC. Hi, Eileen.

Eileen: Oh, hi, thank you very much for taking my call. I'm concerned about the failure of Nassau County police officers to wear masks when they're interacting with the public in close contact. I spend most of my time in the Sixth Precinct. I've witnessed numerous occasions where the officers don't wear masks, and I have complained repeatedly to the Sixth Precinct, but I see no change, and wonder if there might be an opportunity to mandate wearing of masks by police officers.

Laura: Eileen, thank you for that. The police commissioner is requiring that the police officers wear a mask when they're interacting with people when they're within sixth feet of people. I will have a conversation with the police commissioner to make sure that that message is really getting through at all of our precincts.

Brian: Thank you for your call, Eileen. Thank you very much. As we start to run out of time, your article in The New Yorker about your first wave response ends on a hopeful note, for the second wave. You're right, maybe we've learned how to do this, but with cases and hospitalizations and deaths rising again, maybe nobody in America knows how to do this, even now. They know how to do some things better. They're certainly keeping more people alive, who have to go to the hospital, through various treatments and knowing how to handle people physically and things like that.

Maybe nobody in America is doing enough. We need to lockdown more thoroughly, like some places in Europe and Asia. Otherwise, it's just Swiss cheese, and we're going to keep going up and up and up and up, so what's giving you that hope?

Laura: The biggest light of hope, ray of hope right now is news on a vaccine. I was just on a call with county officials from all over the county about when a vaccine is ready, how we distribute it, how we implement it, how we get our health department involved. That is something to be very optimistic about, but you're right. We don't know really what's going to happen. It's going to take time for the vaccine to go through the whole process and the distribution and the frozen equipment and all of that. We don't know.

However, we have learned a lot. We know what works, and it's very simple. It's the social distancing. It's the masks, and it's washing hands. It's such it's so incredibly simple, and it works. We had one statistic at the height of the pandemic where 83% of our hospitalizations for COVID, 83% had been homebound and not working, they had been in their home. Everyone else who was out there working, all of the essential workers and the first responders who were using the PPE and following the protocols weren't getting sick in the same numbers.

That tells me that we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We don't need to shut down, but we just have to appeal to everyone's sense of common sense, and sense of, we are truly, truly in this together. What we do now, what we do on Thanksgiving will affect how we celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah. How we do that will influence what happens for the end of the school year. What we do now, each and every one of us, really matters.

Brian: Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, she also has an article in The New Yorker called How a Long Island County fought COVID-19. A county executive looks back at the first wave. Thank you so much. Continue. Good luck, Happy Thanksgiving.

Laura: Happy Thanksgiving to you and your listeners. Thank you.

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