A West Village woman used an ingenious tactic to escape from an unhinged vagrant who pulled a knife on her earlier this month — claiming she had COVID while coughing in his direction, she told The Post.
Jane Duncan was taking her usual walk a few blocks from Washington Square Park on Feb. 4 when a known local vagrant suddenly jumped in front of her and pulled a knife out of his pocket, she said.
“As he was pulling the knife, I started coughing all over the place,” the 52-year-old said.
“I was like ‘I have COVID. I’m on my way to the ER.’ As I was doing that, he had the knife out and he got scared of me and ran away.”
The man, known in the neighborhood as “Matthew,” asked, “Why are you harassing me?” when he whipped out his weapon.
The two had no prior confrontation, she said, “which makes me think it’s not just that he’s violent, it’s that he’s mentally ill — like he must be hearing voices.”
Duncan, who lives in her childhood home near Washington Street and Bank Street, said more vagrants live in her neighborhood than ever before and she has been using the COVID defense to ward them off too.
“When people are aggressive and getting in my face I start coughing and saying COVID and ‘I’m on my way to the ER,’” admitted Duncan, who provides pet-sitting and cares for the elderly. --->READ MORE HERE
Big Apple parents are giving the school system a failing grade after the massive snowstorm that shut down classes last week exposed serious glitches in the city’s remote learning plan.
About 60% of parents who spoke to The Post said their kids had a hard time logging into the system from home — and some 40% said, while they could get in, they faced a slew of other issues.
That’s bad news for the Department of Education, which has high hopes that remote learning will replace traditional snow days in the future, and for parents who already had to see their children’s education hampered during the lengthy COVID shutdown.
“Remote learning was an absolute disaster during the pandemic,” one frustrated Manhattan parent told The Post. “I don’t understand why NYC is continuing to invest a penny toward it.
“And the gall of the mayor to say our kids fell behind and that parents should do better to help catch them up,” she fumed. “They fell behind because of remote learning.”
Some students who were forced to stay in because of snow ended up getting an hour or less of digital homeschooling during Tuesday’s storm, well below a typical school day which lasts six hours and 20 minutes.
The time students did spend online was “frenzied, hard to follow and frequently interrupted,” another parent said – one of more than a dozen families interviewed.
A parent in Queens called the whole thing “a broken system,” starting with the barrage of calls and emails.
“The first call was at 7 am,” she said. “This, in addition to the same notifications the day before between 4 and 9 pm, is a bit excessive. And the system wasn’t even working.
“It created unnecessary angst and anxiety. My child would have been more successful completing assignments asynchronously without the challenges of the DOE’s ineffective platforms,” she added.
School Chancellor David Banks apologized to parents following the failed remote learning “test” and vowed to investigate glitches that he blamed on technical issues. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
Why vaccinate all kids, standardized tests return and other commentary
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USA TODAY: Coronavirus Updates
WSJ: Coronavirus Live Updates
YAHOO NEWS: Coronavirus Live Updates
NEW YORK POST: Coronavirus The Latest
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