Covid Catches Atlanta’s and Pittsburgh’s New Mayors Slipping
Covid-19 has found a new way to prove exactly how trash it is, this time by infecting Atlanta’s next mayor and causing chaos for Pittsburgh’s first-ever Black mayor elect, who got a false positive earlier this week.
Atlanta mayor-elect Andre Dickens is in a 10-day quarantine after experiencing “mild symptoms” and getting a positive test on Tuesday, his team told the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. He recently was part of a meeting with President Biden and VP Harris, and attended an annual gala hosted by current mayor Keisha Lance-Bottoms, putting him in contact with the two most important elected officials in the country and several hundred others, the AJC reported.
He’s also in the middle of his transition to take over the office from Bottoms and assume leadership of a city mired in a crime wave, Covid outbreaks and an attempt to get the city’s wealthiest neighborhood to secede.
From the AJC
Atlanta Mayor-elect Andre Dickens will have a lot on his plate when he takes office in January. The city is facing a number of challenges surrounding gun violence, service delivery and the threat of Buckhead cityhood, in addition to longstanding issues like economic inequality, affordable housing and traffic congestion.
Dickens has said his immediate priorities include reopening City Hall to the public, working with police Chief Rodney Bryant to reduce crime, increase community policing and lobbying state officials to prevent Buckhead cityhood.
It looks like he’ll have to do all that work from home for awhile.
On the day before Dickens got his positive test, Ed Gainey, the first Black mayor-elect in Pittsburgh’s 205-year history, had to move an in-person press conference to Zoom after a rapid test came back positive. Gainey, a 51-year-old state rep, will also assume the mayor’s seat in January and will have to wrestle with gentrification, policing and his city’s status as literally the worst city in the country for Black women to live in.
But at least he won’t need to quarantine like Dickens. Turns out, his rapid test was a false positive.