Coronavirus in N.Y.C.: Drastic ‘Shelter in Place’ May Be Next

Coronavirus in N.Y.C.: Drastic ‘Shelter in Place’ May Be Next

Life in New York City, a colossus of 8.6 million people and an economic engine for the country, is grinding to a shocking halt.

Central Park was nearly empty on Tuesday as a result of restrictions on public gatherings put in place to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Credit...Stephen Speranza for The New York Times

By Andy Newman
March 17, 2020, 7:44 p.m. ET

New York City, a colossus of 8.6 million people and an economic engine for the country, ground to a shocking halt on Tuesday because of the coronavirus outbreak and the Draconian restrictions on public life put in place to stem its spread. The city’s mayor signaled that the shutdown could go even further with the possibility of an order to “shelter in place.”

“It is a difficult, difficult decision,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in an emotional address at City Hall. “If that moment came, there are tremendously substantial challenges that would have to be met. And I don’t take this lightly at all.”

He continued: “What is going to happen with folks who have no money? How are they going to get food? How are they going to get medicines? How are we going to ensure in a dynamic like that, that supplies are sufficient for our population?”

Mr. de Blasio said he believed a decision on such an order “should be made in the next 48 hours,” as evidence that the virus had already upended the lives of millions of New Yorkers became obvious.

Times Square was practically barren. The city’s most iconic department stores, including Macy’s in Herald Square, announced their closings. The Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building were shuttered. Restaurants and bars stood nearly empty, in their first full day operating solely as delivery and takeout venues.

New York’s desperation was made painfully clear on Tuesday when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the subway system, buses and two commuter railroads, sought a $4 billion federal bailout.

Ridership has plummeted by as much as 90 percent on the region’s trains and 60 percent on the subway — rendering the normally jampacked underground practically unrecognizable.

Officials have grasped for comparisons to other catastrophes. Mr. de Blasio said the economic fallout from the shutdown as a result of the virus could rival that of the Great Depression and the health impact that of the 1918 influenza epidemic that killed over 20,000 in the city.

But even as New Yorkers were struggling with the vast shutdown, the mayor and the governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, fell into a familiar pattern: battling with each other over control of the city.







The surge in coronavirus cases has caused a decline in subway ridership, leading the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to ask for a federal bailout. Credit...Stephen Speranza for The New York Times


As the mayor conducted his news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Cuomo’s office sent out a news release proclaiming that any kind of mass quarantine order would need state approval and that none was imminent. The governor then doubled down on that message.

“There is not going to be any quarantine, no one is going to lock you in your home, no one is going to tell you, you can’t leave the city,” the governor said in an interview on NY1. “That’s not going to happen.”

The public disagreement between the mayor and the governor was nothing new, but the immediacy and rawness of it illustrated the tension and uncertainty of the situation, and how public officials have been struggling to respond to it.

It’s uncertain what a “shelter in place” order would mean for New York City. Mayor de Blasio said it could limit movement to people with essential jobs like police officers, firefighters and health care workers.

A “shelter in place” order enacted on Tuesday in California’s Bay Area requires people to largely stay at home except for essential activities and forbids people who do not live in the same house from gathering anywhere. Going outside, for example, to a park, is still allowed as long as people maintain a six-foot distance from others.

Asked the difference between sheltering in place and quarantine, Mr. de Blasio said “I don’t want to be the guy” to define the distinction and said he would decide on the matter in consultation with the governor.

New York City has quickly become an epicenter of the pandemic in this country: New cases jumped by 75 percent from Monday to Tuesday, to 814, underscoring the need for even more drastic measures.

The mayor, clearly agonizing over his course of action, said that options were running out, and that new restrictions would bring new pain.

“Folks have to understand that, right now, with so many New Yorkers losing employment, losing paychecks, dealing with all sorts of stresses and strains, I’m hearing constantly from people who are tremendously worried about how they’re going to make ends meet,” the mayor said.

“I think New Yorkers should be prepared right now for the possibility of a ‘shelter in place’ order,” Mr. de Blasio said.

As it is, the day after broad shutdowns were put in place on Monday across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, the region was quietly staggering.

After the state waived the seven-day waiting period for filing for unemployment benefits and the resulting surge crashed the Labor Department’s website, officials said the number of applicants was like nothing seen since the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001. The city comptroller said that New York could lose more than $3 billion in tax revenue. One estimate put lost wages in the tourism industry alone at $1 billion per month.

“The economy was teetering to begin with,” Mr. Cuomo said on Monday night. “This is a deep, deep economic hole. You’ll have businesses close that never reopen.”




City residents can still purchase beer from area bars, McSorley’s Old Ale House. Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times


And still the virus continued its march. More than 1,500 people in New York State had tested positive as of Tuesday — a jump of more than 500 since Monday. The few that have been identified include four basketball players from the Brooklyn Nets; several city and state lawmakers; and the head of the New York Police Department’s transit bureau. Twelve people with the virus have died in the state.

People who traveled to New York City took the virus home with them: 19 people who attended a conference of group therapists in Midtown Manhattan in the first week of March have tested positive, the American Group Psychotherapy Association said on Tuesday. They came from six states and three countries, from locations as far-flung as Nebraska and Singapore.

Officials in New York have warned that the virus is threatening to overwhelm the health care system within a matter of weeks. Mr. Cuomo said that the contagion is expected to keep rising until it peaks around the beginning of May.

At that point, he said, the state is expected to need at least 55,000 hospital beds and 18,000 beds in intensive-care units, possibly double those figures. The state currently has only 53,000 hospital beds and 3,000 intensive-care beds — and 80 percent of the intensive-care beds are already occupied. The governor has urged that the Army Corps of Engineers be deployed to create makeshift medical wards out of dormitories and other buildings.

The state is many thousands short of the number of ventilators it would need to help the sickest people breathe if the virus behaves as expected.

“The numbers are daunting,” Mr. Cuomo said. “What are we doing? Everything we can.”

In one encouraging development on Tuesday, Mr. de Blasio announced that the city had reached an agreement with a large testing company, BioReference Laboratories, that will let the city’s public hospitals and clinics test up to 5,000 people a day. They are currently testing only hundreds. But the results of the tests, the mayor said, would inevitably bring much bad news.

“We are certainly going to have thousands of cases next week,” Mr. de Blasio said. “It is not that long before we hit 10,000 cases. That is a true statement.”

Some New Yorkers said on Tuesday that for all practical purposes, they have been sheltering in place for days.

Charlene Edwards, shopping at the Target in TriBeCa in Manhattan, said that her 7-year-old son with asthma and her 87-year-old grandmother were spending almost all their time in their home in Brooklyn.

“I’m already the only one allowed to go out for snacks and supplies,” said Ms. Edwards, 44, who works in law enforcement.

Annie Correal, Luis Ferré-Sadurní, Joseph Goldstein, Patrick McGeehan, Jeffery C. Mays, Jesse McKinley and Liam Stack contributed reporting.



Andy Newman writes about jobs and the people who do them. He has covered New York City and vicinity for The Times for 25 years and written nearly 4,000 stories and blog posts. @andylocal



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