Press Release

This morning, I was informed that I have tested positive for COVID-19. I had been exposed on Wednesday, March 17th and informed of the exposure on Saturday March 21st. I have been sheltering in place before and since that exposure, and while I was mildly symptomatic for a time I have not experienced any symptoms for several days. I am working from home, as are the vast majority of my staff at the DA’s Office and to their credit they have not skipped a beat in fulfilling our responsibilities to the people of Queens County. As a single mom with two young boys (both of whom are asymptomatic) staying home and working from home is not necessarily easy, but it is what we all must do in these times.

My staff and I are continuing our work remotely, and my staff is doing an amazing job; we have moved many of our operations and procedural hearings online. We are working with various city agencies to further reduce our incarcerated population to minimize the risk of infections in our jails; and we will continue to provide the services and support Queens residents need to keep our communities safe.

Queens, and Central Queens specifically, is very much the epicenter of the outbreak in New York City, and I cannot emphasize strongly enough the need for everyone to follow the advice of our public health experts to help combat this disease. COVID-19 is a highly communicable, very dangerous virus. As difficult as it is and as much as we all are feeling the stress of staying confined at home, we all must maintain effective isolation and social distancing to slow the spread, and take all possible steps to keep ourselves safe. But given the backlog of tests – it took me 6 days to get my own test results – everyone should assume that they are a potential carrier and act accordingly.

This crisis will test all of our resolve but the people of Queens and all of New York are resilient, and I know we will pull together throughout the course of this pandemic and after.