We’ve experienced a bit of whiplash this week as officials point to reasons for cautious optimism that New York is turning a corner in the coronavirus pandemic, even as the bodies keep piling up faster than ever. There were a record 799 deaths reported Thursday, breaking the record set on Wednesday, which in turn broke the record set on Tuesday. Yes, that’s three straight days of record-high fatalities.
A week ago we reported the grim marker that New York state’s death toll surpassed the number killed in the Sept. 11 attacks — now it’s not even close. With 7,067 people dead in the state, Gov. Andrew Cuomo had the comparison on his mind. “9/11 was supposed to be the darkest day in New York for a generation,” he said. “We lost 2,753 lives on 9/11. We’ve lost over 7,000 lives to this crisis. That is so shocking and painful and breathtaking. I don’t even have the words for it.” The economic consequences, he added, will be worse than those of the terrorist attack.
There are some signs of improvement, including smaller increases in the number of patients being hospitalized, decreases in admissions to the ICU, and a slight ratcheting down in the level of panic that engulfed hospitals. But as of Thursday, New York can claim another unwanted distinction: It now leads the entire world in coronavirus infections — surpassing Spain, Italy, and every country on earth outside the United States.
IT’S FRIDAY. Got tips, suggestions or thoughts? Let us know … By email: [email protected] and [email protected], or on Twitter: @erinmdurkin and @annagronewold
WHERE’S ANDREW? Appearing on Good Morning America and MSNBC’s Morning Joe
WHERE’S BILL? Appearing on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer show.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “The morning of September 11th, someone called me and said, ‘We’re going to Connecticut. We can pick you up. Do you want to go?’ I was just shocked that anyone would want to leave. I’m not leaving. In fact, I feel that I am like the designated New Yorker. Everyone else can leave.” — Writer Fran Lebowitz to the New Yorker, when asked if she would ever flee her city, now unrecognizable during the pandemic.
MARNEE MAY, 75, was told by the city she’d be getting shipments of weekly meals in late March. She lives in Lower Manhattan and was getting the “grab-and-go” meals from the senior center in her building. Towards the end of March, as the coronavirus tore through the city, the center was shuttered. Weeks have since gone by and her meals haven’t arrived. “Why weren’t we set up for this? That’s what I don’t understand,” May said during a phone interview Thursday afternoon. “What happened to the food? And where is that food? Where is it?” The coronavirus pandemic that has seized New York City has created an almost impossible situation for its older residents. With that population particularly vulnerable to the disease and much of the city on lockdown, their families and friends have been officially warned against visiting. That leaves precious few options for elderly New Yorkers to get meals. New York City’s massive effort to deliver food directly to the homes of the elderly, spearheaded by the Department for the Aging, has left many behind, according to interviews with seniors, advocates and government officials. Throughout the city, many of its most vulnerable residents are trapped at home, wondering when their next meal will come. POLITICO’s Michelle Bocanegra
“ANIL SUBBA, a Nepalese Uber driver from Jackson Heights, Queens, died just hours after doctors at Elmhurst Hospital thought he might be strong enough to be removed from a ventilator. In the nearby Corona neighborhood, Edison Forero, 44, a restaurant worker from Colombia, was still burning with fever when his housemate demanded he leave his rented room, he said. Not far away in Jackson Heights, Raziah Begum, a widow and nanny from Bangladesh, worries she will be ill soon. Two of her three roommates already have the symptoms of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Everyone in the apartment is jobless, and they eat one meal a day. ‘We are so hungry, but I am more terrified that I will get sick,’ said Ms. Begum, 53, who has diabetes and high blood pressure. In a city ravaged by the coronavirus, few places have suffered as much as central Queens, where a seven-square-mile patch of densely packed immigrant enclaves recorded more than 7,000 cases in the first weeks of the outbreak. New York Times’ Annie Correal and Andrew Jacobs
“AS CORONAVIRUS INFECTIONS peak in New York City, its morgues are quickly running out of room, exceeding their already vastly expanded capacity. The city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner quietly posted a significant but subtle policy change to its website: Instead of holding some bodies in refrigerated city storage for 30 days until they are claimed by families, the city will now hold them for less than half that time. On Thursday, OCME’s site noted decedents who are not claimed by a funeral home within two weeks days would be sent to the Bronx’s Hart Island, where a mass graveyard called City Cemetery contains more than 1 million unclaimed bodies — the largest such site in the US.” Business Insider’s Dave Mosher
— “New York City officials have hired contract laborers to bury the dead in its potter’s field on Hart Island as the city’s daily death rate from the coronavirus epidemic has reached grim new records in each of the last three days.” Reuters’ Lucas Jackson and Brendan McDermid
— Burials on Hart Island have increased almost fivefold.
— Gov. Cuomo will sign an executive order allowing out of state funeral directors to practice in New York and help with the death toll, as POLITICO reported last week.
NEW YORK CITY could begin to ease some coronavirus restrictions in late May or June — but it will require widespread testing of residents for the virus, which the city does not yet have the ability to do. Even as the death toll continues to surge — reaching 5,150 on Thursday, according to state data, with more than 84,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 — the city has begun to plan for a gradual return to normalcy down the road, Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “People have been following the rules, and that’s why we’re starting to see some improvement. And we are far from out of the woods,” de Blasio said, citing hopeful signs like a stabilization in hospitalizations. “If we really work hard, we have a chance of seeing change in May or June.” POLITICO’s Erin Durkin
— Cuomo meanwhile, told WAMC’s Alan Chartock Thursday that reopening is a “very big decision” and there are no clear metrics for when it will be safe. He also wants to coordinate with New Jersey and Connecticut. “When we reopen, that has to be a coordinated approach,” he said.
— It is nearly impossible to maintain six feet of distance on many city sidewalks.
— Traffic has largely disappeared, and rush hour speeds on the BQE are up 288 percent.
— De Blasio said he has no regrets about encouraging New Yorkers to visit their neighborhood bars a day before they were shut down.
— Plans to turn the Cathedral of St. John the Divine into an emergency hospital have been called off amid concerns over the role of evangelical group Samaritan’s Purse.
— Nearly 60 percent of city jail inmates have been exposed to coronavirus.
“SOME of the thousands of people suddenly out of work in New York are so desperate to bypass the state’s clogged unemployment benefits hotline they’re using social media to directly contact staff who handle applications. ‘They are messaging me privately or commenting on one of my comments on Facebook,’ said a veteran Department of Labor employee who asked to remain anonymous. ‘I have to block and block and block,’ she added. ‘I want to help. But they have to follow the guidelines and can’t skip the lines.’” THE CITY’s Reuven Blau and Allison Dikanovic
— The state is rebooting its unemployment website to allow more people to complete their applications online without a phone call.
“GOV. ANDREW M. CUOMO confirmed Thursday he has deferred pay raises scheduled for April for some 80,000 state workers, a move fiscal hawks had been urging for weeks to deal with the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. ‘We, frankly, don’t have the money,’ Robert Mujica, Cuomo’s budget director, said at the governor’s daily briefing, about 12 hours after some of the state’s major unions began spreading the word about the pay freeze.” Newsday’s Yancey Roy
“NEW YORK’S Department of Financial Services this week reached an agreement with private student loan companies to provide temporarily (sic) relief to those struggling to pay down debts due to the coronavirus. The agreement defers debt collection for 90 days and waives late fees for more than 300,000 New Yorkers with private student loans, covering 90% of lenders operating in the state, the Department of Financial Services said.” USA Today Network’s Chad Arnold
IN NEW YORK, the real estate lobby tried to convince Gov. Andrew Cuomo that people could be left homeless if the industry is forced to shut down. Retailers in Illinois pressed to get businesses that service swimming pools and hot tubs added to the list of businesses considered too essential to be closed. And the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America provided talking points to its members to push states and localities to let the greens stay open. The game of golf has “tremendous benefits to offer during times of crisis,” the trade group argued on its website. As states and cities have forced what they consider “nonessential businesses” to close to slow the spread of coronavirus, lobbyists for industries from retail to reefer have been hustling to make the case that they’re too important to be shut down — a designation that could mean millions for companies and the employees who keep them running. POLITICO’s Theodoric Meyer and Anna Gronewold
— Sandra Lee, New York’s former “first girlfriend,” watches Cuomo’s daily coronavirus briefings. (“We share a home, we share children, we share friendship,” she said of Mr. Cuomo. “I will protect him and be there for him until the day I die.”)
— Democratic Assembly members are displeased with the state budget.
— “Hospitals have warned, disciplined and even fired staff members who went public with workplace concerns about coronavirus precautions.”
— Golf courses are no longer considered essential businesses and will be shut down until April 29.
— Child advocates and social workers have been straining to provide the needs of families within the foster care system remotely.
— Leaders around the state, nation and globe are taking Easter online.
— After reports some retailers and grocery stores were forbidding customers from coming into their stores if they are masked, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz signed an executive order making it illegal for any local business to bar entry to masked customers.
LISTEN: Assemblymember Karines Reyes (D-Bronx) told Capitol Pressroom’s David Lombardo why she decided to return to nursing and what she is seeing on the front lines of the COVID-19 fight.
#UpstateAmerica: Seems like not many of y’all are flying through Syracuse these days, huh?
— The makeshift hospital in Central Park has filled up.
— While there’s no conclusive evidence proving fleeing New Yorkers caused outbreaks in nearby vacation spots, some preliminary data and anecdotal evidence shows it may have quickened the spread.
— Many undocumented immigrants with the virus are avoiding hospitals.
— Columbia University is converting its Inwood soccer stadium into a field hospital.
— A staff member who worked with youth at Brooklyn’s Crossroads Juvenile Center has died of Covid-19.
— The MTA is taking the temperatures of some of its frontline workers.
— Why New York’s death toll may be much higher in reality.
— Grocers and other retailers have paused 5-cent can and bottle redemptions.
— Correction officers complain that inmates have coughed and spit on them deliberately during the coronavirus pandemic.
— Lincoln Center has canceled its summer programming.
— More New York hospitals can now request plasma from recovered Covid-19 patients, in spite of little data showing the plasma can combat the virus.
— Activists are hoping to save Chinatown’s restaurants.
— Restaurants complain that Grubhub is taking too much of their meager revenue in fees.
— Moe the Butcher, of Little Italy, has died.
— Lessons from a priest on helping during the pandemic.
— The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund will be helping food banks.
— Illustrations of a bakery “working nonstop” to survive after the virus shuttered it.
“A CONSERVATIVE political outfit plans to pour $1.4 million into the contest to knock off Staten Island-Brooklyn Democratic Rep. Max Rose, the group announced Thursday. The Congressional Leadership Fund said it was reserving $43 million worth of air time to go after Democrats in 35 different districts, with Rose high on the list. Rose’s campaign declined to comment, saying it would refrain from political activity while Rose, a captain in the National Guard, is deployed this month in the fight against coronavirus.” Daily News’ Michael Mcauliff
— A poll commissioned by a conservative group showed most Democrats would rather nominate Gov. Andrew Cuomo for the presidency than former Vice President Joe Biden.
— “Meanwhile, in the Suburbs: Leaf Blower Drama.”
— Attorneys for Sheldon Silver want U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to delay their client’s June 25 resentencing on fraud and corruption charges.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Hanna Rosin, co-host of NPR’s “Invisibilia,” is 5-0 … Carter Yang … Stig Abell, editor of the Times Literary Supplement, is 4-0 … Ann Marie Hauser, VP of public affairs at the Hudson Institute … Jeffrey Frank … Bridget Mulcahy, booking producer for MSNBC’s “Hardball” … Lauren Appelbaum
HAPPENING TODAY: Mitchell Moss, the Henry Hart Rice professor of urban policy and planning, at NYC, is giving a virtual talk at 1 p.m. titled “How Disasters Shape New York: The Impact of the Coronavirus on Life and Death in the Nation’s Largest City.” RSVP
WELCOME TO THE WORLD: Bill Weir, anchor and chief climate correspondent for CNN, and Kelly Dowd, senior director of sales at Mackage, welcomed William River Weir on Tuesday. Pic … Another pic
“NEW YORK APARTMENT leases plunged last month as coronavirus stay-at-home orders kept the city’s renters from moving. In Manhattan, new agreements fell 38% in March from a year earlier, the second-biggest decline in 11 years of record-keeping by appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate. In Brooklyn and Queens, signings were down 46% and 34%, respectively, the firms said in a report Thursday. Restrictions on gatherings have made in-person showings illegal, and landlords, worried about units going vacant during a recession, did what they could to retain current tenants.” Bloomberg’s Oshrat Carmiel
— Sealing a real estate deal has proven harder during the pandemic.
“A FEW DAYS ago, Cindy Perez stepped warily into a tiny, but empty public housing elevator in the Holmes Towers on the Upper East Side for the ride to the lobby from the 23rd floor. It was the only elevator working in her building. The other lift was, once again, out of service. A few floors into Perez’s trip, the concept of social distancing became moot when another tenant and her two children crammed inside with her. The quartet now shared the kind of claustrophobic space Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo warn New Yorkers to avoid. …NYCHA has experienced an epidemic to go along with the pandemic: dozens of elevators in developments from the Upper West Side to the South Bronx to the eastern reaches of Queens have been breaking down, sometimes for more than 24 hours, a review of data by THE CITY found.” THE CITY’s Greg B. Smith
In what is a positive sign for the limits of the economic impact of coronavirus on the WNBA, the New York Liberty announced Thursday that FanDuel agreed to become a marquee sponsor for the team. The FanDuel logo will be featured on the team’s jerseys, and the FanDuel cash will flow into the team’s coffers as it begins play at Barclays Center… at some point. The Liberty will pick first in the WNBA Draft next Friday, April 17. And barring something unforeseen, they will select Sabrina Ionescu of Oregon.
The day ahead: the WNBA is offering free access to its League Pass right now (though it is an absurd bargain even in ordinary times). So let’s take a look at a game that helped the Liberty earn that first overall pick, high drama in last year’s home opener against the Indiana Fever.
- Erin Durkin @erinmdurkin
- Anna Gronewold @annagronewold
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Seniors left behind by meal delivery — Immigrant neighborhoods in central Queens suffer — City eyes eventual reopening but hampered by lack of testing
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