Adams Won't Avoid Public Events Once Cleared From COVID, He Says

NEW YORK, NY — Mayor Eric Adams won't be holed up in Gracie Mansion for long.

The mayor said Monday that he doesn't plan to scale back the number of public events in his typically-packed schedule once he is cleared by doctors to come out of coronavirus quarantine later this week.

"I'm going to listen strictly to the doctor’s orders on what to do," Adams said. "But the number of events — I'm going to continue to try to be as visible as possible as we get through COVID and many of the other crises that we are facing."

Adams, who has worked remotely since testing positive on Sunday, will resume public events with a mask on after a five-day isolation, he said.

The mayor said Monday he still is experiencing only minor symptoms, like a raspy voice, which he credits to his vaccination status.

"I think it's important to continue to encourage New Yorkers to be vaccinated and boosted," he said. "I think that with the history of preexisting conditions that I will probably have had different outcomes if I was not vaccinated and boosted."

Though promising to wear a mask immediately out of quarantine, the mayor side-stepped a question about whether the diagnosis will change his behavior toward public events overall.

The mayor — despite advice from his own health commissioner — had been attending large lunches, meetings, festivals and other events unmasked in the three days before waking up with a raspy voice and getting a positive PCR test on Sunday, according to his public schedule.

Health officials have urged New Yorkers to wear a mask indoors when the vaccination status of others isn't known given a resurge of cases fueled by the highly-contagious BA.2 subvariant, though the recommendation is not a strict mandate.

Asked Monday, Adams said coronavirus rates in New York City are not yet at a point where masks need to be mandated again, as they have been in cities like Philadelphia.

"The doctors have created what scenario will cause us to move to the next level. We're not there yet," he said. "When we do, we will announce it."