New York City’s public middle school buildings will open this month after being closed since COVID-19 cases began to surge in November, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday. The 62,000 students in grades 6 through 8 whose families have chosen in-person learning — out of a total of 196,000 city students in those grades — be back in their classrooms on Feb. 25, officials said. “As we’ve said from the beginning, nothing can replace in-person learning and the support that our students receive in person,” said schools chancellor Richard Carranza, who joined de Blasio at a virtual news conference.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday that New York City restaurants can bring back indoor dining on Friday, a slight move-up from the previously scheduled Sunday reopening date but a tweak that allows eateries to reap the benefits of the full Valentine’s Day weekend rather than just the holiday alone. The governor had said he wanted to evaluate the data over the weekend when asked late last week about a potential date change and affirmed an ongoing stabilization, if not marked improvement, in the numbers on Monday. In New York City, new case and rolling hospitalization averages are both down by double-digit percentage points over the last seven days compared with the weekly average for the prior four weeks. Deaths are down, too, though by a lesser degree.

New York state’s COVID-19 hospitalizations continued to decline this weekend, reaching their lowest level since December 25th, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday. Hospitalizations declined by 155 patients to 7,649, the lowest since Dec. 25. The number of patients in intensive care also declined by 22 to 1,459. Cuomo said the state’s one-day positivity rate dropped to 4%, the lowest one-day positivity rate since Nov. 27. The seven-day positivity rate also declined to 4.5%, the lowest seven-day average since Dec. 2, Cuomo said. The state reported another 10,025 positive cases out of 250,892 tests conducted Saturday. There were 5,282 new cases in New York City, according to the state. The city’s seven-day positivity rate rose slightly, from 5.09% to 5.13%.

Rockland Chaveirim has a message for motorists in the Monsey area on Sunday morning: Stay off the roads. “We have responded to dozens of spin-outs and minor accidents so far on Sunday morning”, a Chaveirim spokesperson tells YWN. As Chaveirim was talking to YWN that were responding to a school bus involved in a minor accident with children on the bus. The roads are treacherous and extremely slippery – and Chaveirim is reiterating: please stay off the roads unless you have a real emergency! One of the accidents involved a Monsey Hatzolah ambulance on Viola Road and West maple Avenue. Thankfully, no serious injuries have been reported in the incidents this morning. During last weeks blizzard, Rockland Chaveirim responded to a whopping 2,58 snow related calls. Read about that on YWN here.

New York’s governor announced Friday the state will open up vaccine eligibility by Feb. 15 for people with a wide range of certain health conditions — from obesity to hypertension, cancer and intellectual and developmental disabilities — that put them at high risk of severe illness from COVID-19. Gov. Andrew Cuomo pointed to data suggesting nearly all people who have died from COVID-19 had other serious health conditions. “You do every group in the state when you do people with comorbidities,” he said Friday. The Democratic governor’s announcement came weeks after he said on Jan. 12 that New York would accept new federal guidance to expand vaccine access to younger people with certain health problems, including those with weakened immune systems.

A Winter Storm Warning is in effect for Sunday as a quick-moving system will deposit three to six inches of snow for most of the Tri-State area, with shoveling and plowing likely necessary. Expect increasing cloudiness Saturday night with a bit of snow arriving toward daybreak south and west of New York City. Sunday will be breezy with snow at varying rates, tapering off by late in the afternoon. The latest forecast calls for three to five inches in and around the city, especially in areas south and east. The Jersey Shore and eastern Long Island, which saw the lowest snow totals during the nor’easter, could see the highest snowfall Sunday, with current estimates of snowfall between five and eight inches.

A New York judge ruled Friday that Republican Claudia Tenney defeated U.S. Rep. Anthony Brindisi by 109 votes in the nation’s last undecided congressional race. The ruling by Judge Scott DelConte could clear the way for Tenney to be sworn in as the representative for central New York’s 22nd Congressional District, barring emergency intervention by a state appeals court. She previously was the district’s representative for one term, until she was defeated by Brindisi, a Democrat, in 2018. DelConte’s ruling came after he spent three months reviewing ballot challenges and trying to fix a myriad of problems with vote tabulation. He rejected an argument by Brindisi’s lawyers that certification of the election results should be delayed until an appeals court had a chance to review the case.

With 22 inches of snow walloping Monsey during this week’s two day Nor’easter, it was a memorable week for Chaverim of Rockland which recorded 2,158 snow related calls. Chaverim coordinator Yossi Margaretten described his agency’s call volume as record breaking, with his team of approximately 120 volunteers rescuing stranded motorists, taking women to the hospital to deliver babies, transporting dialysis patients and ferrying people to and from medical appointments. With three weddings taking place in Monsey on Monday night in Ateres Charna, Ateres Chaya Sura and at the Vichovitz-Viznitz Hall, there were plenty of mazel tovs to go around as well, as Chaverim made sure that the chossonim, kallahs, parents and grandparents made it safely to their simchos and then back home again.

The New York Police Department’s former workplace harassment czar was fired Wednesday over allegations he posted hateful messages online, officials said. Police Commissioner Dermot Shea’s decision to fire Deputy Inspector James Kobel came about three weeks after Kobel submitted retirement paperwork in an attempt to avoid a departmental disciplinary proceeding. At an internal disciplinary trial last month, Kobel was found to have violated multiple department rules and regulations. Kobel did not attend the trial and it was not listed on the department’s public trial calendar. A message seeking comment was left with Kobel’s union. Despite his firing, Kobel will retain his pension.

A state judge ordered New York’s Department of Health to release records about nursing home residents who died of COVID-19 in a Wednesday ruling that said the agency’s failure to do so already was a “violation” of New York’s open government law. Albany County Acting Supreme Court Justice Kimberly O’Connor also ordered Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration Wednesday to pay legal fees for The Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative-leaning, nonprofit think tank that filed suit demanding the release of the records last fall. New York regularly releases the number of residents who died at individual nursing homes and assisted living homes after testing positive for COVID-19.