New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday said it was “a mistake” to close schools and move to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, citing the impact of resulting job losses on New Yorkers.In a wide-ranging speech at the University of Albany commemorating Women’s Equality Day, Hochul, a Democrat, shared her aspirations “to get women back to where they were” before the onset of the pandemic two years ago.
This would start, she said, with a broad study of COVID-19’s impact on New York’s women, employers, and “everybody” affected. “We’re going to peel back every dynamic and let’s look at, not just in the workplace, but what happened to women when the decisions were made to have all the kids go home and learn remotely,” Hochul said. “Wow. Wow, what a mistake that was. What a mistake that was. Women couldn’t go to their jobs. They lost their jobs. Or they thought they were back at their jobs and one child in a classroom tests positive, the whole class goes home for a week and a half.”
The New York governor described the disrupted education delivery as “nothing short of chaos” and noted that “it just seems to have not ended.” Hochul vowed to “get to the bottom” of what happened by holding hearings across the state to hear from New Yorkers, including women, employers, and “everybody,” with an aim to avoid an “unfair” pandemic response that results in job losses.