COVID liability and risk
| Submitted | Nov. 9, 2023 |
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Communications
From: ALEXANDER RICCIO
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the New York Freedom of Information Law, I hereby request the following records:
Records mentioning the phrase "COVID" in all forms, but also "long covid".
Records mentioning "airborne transmission".
Records mentioning "airborne disease".
Records mentioning "aerosol".
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 5 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
ALEXANDER RICCIO
From: Nyc Office Of The Actuary (nycoa), New York
Hi Alexander –
Can I ask you to clarify more of what you are looking for related to COVID?
Attached is a fiscal note we produced that determined the estimated cost to NYC to provide death benefit to public employees who died due to COVID-19.
COVID-19 is mentioned in this document.
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MARLENE MARKOE-BOYD
Director of Communications/FOIL Officer
New York City Office of the Actuary
255 Greenwich Street, 9th floor, New York, NY 10007
212-312-0119 I www.nyc.gov/actuary<http://www.nyc.gov/actuary>
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any review, use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message, or any attachment, is strictly prohibited, and that you should contact the sender by replying to this email and delete all copies of the original message along with any attachments.
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From: ALEXANDER RICCIO
I think this is an excellent example of a responsive record! It is also quite good response time and very helpful compared to other city and state agencies.
I am not quite sure how records are managed and indexed at NYC Office of the Actuary, but if you can provide any other reports like that that are responsive, that's an excellent start.
If the Office of the Actuary has other COVID related actuarial reports and work products, like estimates of the financial burden and financial risk of a workforce with 1% new disability (thus forced into long term workers compensation/suing the city) from long COVID, the cost of death benefits from ongoing increased excess deaths, or studies of workforce disruption due to sickness, those too would be responsive.
Regarding search terms like "airborne transmission", "airborne disease", and "aerosol", I have also heard rumors (that I will not specify) that other jurisdictions elsewhere in the world have performed actuarial analysis of the direct and liability costs of airborne diseases. At least one such institution may have weighed that in the past few years while choosing to publicly acknowledge the risk of airborne transmission, and decided to keep said information quiet in an attempt at reducing legal exposure. Thus, it would be curious and greatly effect the public if such analysis was done in our jurisdiction.
If records other than reports are available, such as emails and memos, I would appreciate their search and inclusion where possible.
Thanks in advance.
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following New York Freedom of Information Law request, copied below, and originally submitted on Nov. 9, 2023. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Nyc Office Of The Actuary (nycoa), New York
Hello.
After doing an initial search to respond to your request seeking COVID-related actuarial reports/work products related to estimates of financial burden/risk related to the epidemic, we have attached the fiscal notes the OA has produced.
Fiscal notes accompany state legislation and outline the costs associated with changes/enhancements to New York City’s pension plans. The attached are our fiscal notes (work products) that were COVID-related and where COVID was mentioned in the documents.
Additionally, some of our Valuation Reports mention COVID briefly by way of mentioning the COVID-related fiscal notes the OA produced. Here is the link to the website where you fill find those reports.
https://www.nyc.gov/site/actuary/reports/reports.page
Regarding search terms like "airborne transmission", "airborne disease", and "aerosol", our initial search did not lead to any records containing those terms.
Please feel free to reach out to me if you want to discuss this further and to review what we have sent to you.
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MARLENE MARKOE-BOYD
Director of Communications
New York City Office of the Actuary
255 Greenwich Street, 9th floor, New York, NY 10007
212-312-0119 I www.nyc.gov/actuary<http://www.nyc.gov/actuary>
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any review, use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message, or any attachment, is strictly prohibited, and that you should contact the sender by replying to this email and delete all copies of the original message along with any attachments.
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From: ALEXANDER RICCIO
Hi,
Thanks so much for your help with this request! I really appreciate it. This has gone far more smoothly and more reasonably than any other city agency I've dealt with!
Sincerely,
ALEXANDER RICCIO
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