Coronavirus Complications Send Queens Rep To ER Amid Budget Vote

ASTORIA, QUEENS — As the New York City Council raced to meet a midnight deadline Tuesday to pass the city's 2021 budget, one Queens representative was noticeably absent.

City Council Member Costa Constantinides was instead inside a hospital emergency room, as he struggled with mounting breathing issues and chest pain that have lingered ever since he started experiencing COVID-19 symptoms at the end of March, according to his spokesperson.

"You don’t know how frustrating this has been, as I want to fully focus on my job," Constantinides tweeted Wednesday, while at the doctor's office for a follow-up appointment. "But breathing is at times difficult, especially as the weather gets hotter."

While Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council went back and forth Tuesday evening on how to best deal with a $9 billion shortfall, the same virus whose collateral damage was forcing lawmakers to make drastic spending cuts had managed to force one of their own from the negotiating table.

Constantinides headed to Mount Sinai Queens hospital just before 8 p.m. Tuesday after experiencing difficulty breathing and chest pain, his spokesperson, Terence Cullen, told Patch.

He notified the City Council while he was in the emergency room, as his colleagues were heading into their stated meeting to vote on a contentious, $88.1 billion budget.

Constantinides spent several hours in the emergency room, where doctors attributed his symptoms to COVID-19 complications.

It was the first time he had missed a budget vote, he said.

"While I was not able to make a stand last night," he tweeted Wednesday, "I am committed to using whatever time I have left in the Council to fight for a scaled-down police department."