Former NYC Health Chief Speaks Out Against DeBlasio’s Handling of Pandemic

By Ellen Cans

Former New York City Health Commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, spoke out in a new documentary, against Mayor Bill de Blasio’s handling of the novel Covid-19 pandemic.

As reported by the NY Post, Dr. Barbot, who had resigned over the summer while expressing “deep disappointment” in de Blasio’s handling of the health crisis, spoke in a three-minute video for the BBC’s streaming service, BBC Select, which was presented on YouTube on Monday. “Behind the scenes, we had talked to the mayor and his team, [saying] that we could see tens of thousands of people die if we don’t act quickly,” Barbot recalled having said. Barbot, who served as Commissioner of Health of the City of New York from 2018 to 2020, said that she had felt “really strongly that we needed to prepare New Yorkers emotionally for what was coming,” she recalled. “We need New Yorkers to be ready for loved ones dying.” She says that her warnings were met with “panic in the room of like, ‘Oh my God, you can’t say that to the public because we’re gonna lose their trust.’”

To date, as of Monday afternoon, 29,866 New Yorkers have died from COVID-19, and roughly 755,261 New Yorkers have been diagnosed with the virus since last March, as per city data. Barbot said that in her position she had wanted to provide the residents of this city with a forthcoming warning. “I was trying to, in that early period, be deliberate about…” she said in the video, where tears well in her eyes, and she drifts into silence. “As the city’s doctor, taking my city through what I knew was coming.”

In Barbot’s August resignation letter, she had complained that the city’s DOH had not been given the leeway to work at its highest potential during the pandemic. Before her resignation she also had a dispute with the NYPD Chief, in which she reportedly blew off a request from the police department for 500,000 face masks. She ultimately apologized for the controversy.

On Monday, City Hall issued a response, strongly disputing Barbot’s description of the pandemic response. “The idea that Dr. Barbot was pounding on the table, warning City Hall behind closed doors that tens of thousands of people would die without more aggressive action is simply false,” a spokeswoman said. “All we wanted was a clear prognosis on when to shut down the city, and how far we had to go. She was unable to produce either.”