Cynthia Nixon Slams COVID Protocols in N.Y.C Schools, Compares Son's Daily Dropoff to 'Squid Game'

The actress criticized New York City Mayor Eric Adams for not having "functioning" COVID safety protocols for students and educators

Cynthia Nixon. Photo: Marion Curtis/StarPix for HBOmax/Shutterstock

Cynthia Nixon is criticizing the current COVID-19 protocols in place across New York City public schools.

On Monday, the 55-year-old Sex and the City actress spoke out on Twitter about the rise of COVID cases within schools, condemning how it's being handled and comparing her 10-year-old son Max's school drop-off situation to Netflix's South Korean survival drama Squid Game.

"School drop-off every morning is like the Squid Game — every day fewer & fewer people & whoever is left gets herded into the cafeteria to play Russian roulette over lunch," she wrote. "The many quarantining students & teachers today were joined by our principal himself who tested +."

Days earlier, Nixon criticized New York City's new mayor, Eric Adams, claiming he hasn't done enough to protect students and educators.

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"Here in NY our Mayor is all talk & 'swagger' ZERO walking the walk," she tweeted. "He says they're 'randomly testing' 20% of students, but with all the caveats on who is tested, yesterday at my 10 yo's school only 12 students out of 305 were tested. That's 3.9% of the student body."

"Read this student's account of what's happening at one of the NYC's most elite public high schools," Nixon added, sharing a Reddit post from a high schooler. "THIS is what happens when you have a Mayor who thinks swagger can replace actual functioning Covid-safety protocols that keep schools up & running & teaching effectively."

Nixon, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in New York as a progressive challenger to then-incumbent Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2018, said that public schools should follow the example of private schools for proper COVID protocols, suggesting the distribution of masks, weekly testing and more.

"Last spring Congress gave $123 billion to K-12 schools for Covid preparedness. Why isn't NYC 'prepared?' Mayor Adams has stepped into a huge challenge with the surge of Omicron, but kids now are neither learning NOR safe & the Mayor's big swagger is doing little to hide that," she wrote.

New York City public schools reported 4,065 cases of COVID as of Jan. 9 — 3,378 students and 686 staff — according to the Department of Education.

In a Jan. 3 press release, Mayor Adams said that the city has expanded its COVID protocols in all schools while maintaining that in-person learning is the best option.

He "stressed that safe in-person learning is critical to our most vulnerable students who were significantly impacted by the isolation this pandemic caused"

"Our young people rely on our public schools as lifelines every single day and we owe it to them to be fully open," Adams continued. "As someone who was born, raised, and graduated from NYC public schools I know how important they are to families across the city and we will not deviate from our commitment to keeping them safely open."

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