This week's biggest Winners & Losers

Mike Bloomberg seems to have realized that donating oodles of money for a statewide COVID-19 test and track program will help everyone to forget all about his short-lived presidential bid. The billionaire has pledged to spend around $10 million on the new program. But that number seems a little thin, considering the former New York City mayor spent a whopping $1 billion on his 104-day campaign.

The Board of Elections’ arcane rules dashed the political hopes of many candidates hoping to make the ballot this week – but not rapper and subway entertainer Paperboy Love Prince! While most candidates facing petition challenges hire a lawyer, the 20-something Bushwickite eloquently argued their own case and won on a technicality. Looks like the artist behind “Spreading Love Like a Virus” will be facing Rep. Nydia Velázquez on the congressional primary ballot.

New York hospitals have been bleeding cash – as much as $450 million each month – while on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Luckily, some immediate financial relief is set to arrive over the next few days. Thanks to federal coronavirus relief legislation, New York's hospitals are set to get more than $4 billion to help cover the extra costs of fighting the virus. More support for medical institutions will be likely needed as the crisis rages, but the funding will certainly lighten their load for now.

So much for Google’s tech support. Despite the state Department of Labor’s unemployment insurance system relaunch, the system is still failing New Yorkers trying to apply for and receive unemployment payments. The 1.2 million claims that have been filed so far are no doubt an unwieldy amount to process. But after championing the system’s “tech surge” relaunch as the solution to earlier bottlenecks, the Department of Labor, and its commissioner Roberta Reardon, have a lot more work to do.

These may be trying times we live in, but it’s no excuse for shoddy election paperwork. Especially if you’re the incumbent. Democratic Assemblywoman Rebecca Seawright made the rookie mistake of forgetting to file her petitions with a cover sheet, remembering only 10 days later. And if that’s not bad enough, she didn’t have the proper authorization to run on the Working Families Party line either. So the New York City Board of Elections kicked her off the ballot and has all but left her seat open for her Republican opponent to take, unless an appeal is successful. That’s gotta be rough.

The leaders of the state Senate and Assembly have yet to summon their members back to Albany since passing the state budget earlier this month. They are supposedly too busy helping constituents during the pandemic. While some good has undoubtedly come out efforts like those touted by Heastie outside a computer-generated Yankee Stadium this week, why can’t the “Wonder Twins” follow the lead of the New York City Council? After all, their city counterparts demonstrated this week that members can meet remotely (as a Senate source claimed is possible this month) without undermining constituent services.