NYC politician Yuh-Line Niou made bold claims about her pandemic work

Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou has made daring claims over many meals and masks she's helped to ship throughout the pandemic.
Hans Pennink

Manhattan Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou has made daring claims of delivering pandemic assist and “saving lives,” however the numbers don’t all the time add up.

The progressive Democrat who represents the Decrease East Facet, Chinatown and the Monetary District and needs to run for state Senate, has tweeted a powerful — and generally laborious to fathom — record of accomplishments.

In January 2022, she claimed in a tweet that she and her crew had given out “over 1,000,000 masks and over 1,000,000 meals” throughout COVID.

A number of days later she tweeted that “my workers has personally saved lives of individuals in our district and past … and handed out thousands and thousands of meals and PPE.”

The masks quantity fluctuated from greater than a half 1,000,000 she claimed in an Aug. 28, 2020 tweet, to greater than 1 / 4 million on a podcast in October 2020.

Throughout the pandemic lockdown, she tweeted about distributing scorching meals from the 46 Mott bakery in Chinatown — and people claims rapidly mushroomed from 120 meals a day on April 25, 2020, to 450 a day on Might 9, 2020. However the bakery’s personal depend was reported to be 150 a day in early Might 2020.

One Chinatown property proprietor stated Niou’s countless social media posts felt “performative” and pointless.

Niou plans to run for state senate within the June major,

William Farrington

“I consider that displaying your self on social media hand delivering meals, that’s nice for one or two pictures,” stated Jan Lee. “However throughout the pandemic or throughout an emergency, we truly anticipate you to be doing the work that you simply’re elected to do, which is to legislate or discover the faults with the system that creates meals insecurity.”

Niou, who holds the seat as soon as occupied by the late Meeting Speaker Shelly Silver, determined to not search re-election with the intention to problem incumbent Sen. Brian Kavanagh in June’s Democratic major.

Whereas searching for re-election to the Meeting in 2020 because the pandemic raged, Niou stated in a tweet and interview that she wouldn't be doing any fundraising or campaigning.

However Niou participated in at the very least 10 digital fundraisers in Might and June 2020, together with a Zoom film evening and an occasion promising “cocktails, loopy hats and dialog.”

One Chinatown property proprietor known as Niou’s social media posts “performative.”

Hans Pennink

Niou took warmth in January for a tweet that described uniformed and largely maskless NYPD officers taking the subway after the funeral of slain cop Jason Rivera as placing on a “horrifying present of intimidation” and creating “a large well being danger.” She additionally favored a tweet describing the officers’ attendance on the funeral as “their fascism rally on the streets above.”

The assemblywoman’s “in depth work supporting Decrease Manhattan households and seniors with each meals and PPE’s [sic] all through the pandemic is well-documented and recorded,” stated Niou’s marketing campaign spokesman Max Burns. “Any suggestion in any other case is fake, and exhibits the desperation of the absent institution. They failed, the place she delivered.”

He didn't present any documentation of that work.