I Live in New York City. I Am Watching Coronavirus Shut Down the City That Never Sleeps.

March 15, 2020 Topic: economy Blog Brand: The Skeptics Tags: CoronavirusNew York CityDonald TrumpHistory

I Live in New York City. I Am Watching Coronavirus Shut Down the City That Never Sleeps.

The Big Apple is now in the process of closing. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, Carnegie Hall, the New York Philharmonic, Madison Square Garden, and the Barkley Center are all closed for business. Restaurants and bars are at half capacity, assuming they haven’t already put the “closed” sign on the front door.

The novel coronavirus has produced bedlam in the nation’s capital, where the Trump administration continues to fumble for an adequate response and the president himself tries to tell Americans across the country that everything, in the end, will be fine. Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s leading authority on pandemics and infectious diseases, is now hinting on national television that shutting down the entire country may be on the table in order to prevent the spread of the virus. There is a sense of fear and panic in Washington, D.C. about what Trump will do at any given moment and how his decisions will impact public health and the financial markets.

As of Sunday morning, there were 2,980 confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States. 613 of those cases (20% of the total) are in New York State. Of those 613 cases, 269 are in New York City, a major metropolitan area where shaking hands, riding in close quarters, and getting coughed on by strangers is an everyday occurrence. 

And therein lies the worry: with so many people jam-packed into such a small area, how on earth is it even possible to limit exposure to the coronavirus? This is a question I have been asking myself a lot--I live in the Big Apple myself. 

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is likely wondering the same thing. "We’re getting into a situation where the only analogy is war,” de Blasio told reporters last Thursday after rolling out a series of social distancing measures for the city.  "This will not be over soon.” Stephen Levin, a New York City councilman representing Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO, and Williamsburg, told New Yorkers to prepare for the ultimate scenario: “we are going to have to #shutdownNYC in the coming days, just like they are doing in Spain and France today,” Levin tweeted this morning. 

New Yorkers are generally tough people. We press forward, regardless of the circumstances. When the financial district was engulfed in smoke, rubble, and ash more than 18 years ago after the worst terrorist attack in American history, the entire city came together. New Yorkers helped New Yorkers; whether your neighbor was a friend or a stranger didn’t make a difference. When a lone, self-radicalized terrorist placed a pipe bomb in Chelsea and injured over a dozen people in 2016, I remember being on the street that night and seeing New Yorkers upset—not because they were scared about further attacks, but because their dinner plans were ruined. And when a driver used a truck to kill 8 people on Manhattan’s west side, the city moved as quickly as a New York minute. 

Coronavirus, however, is something different. Acts of terrorism don’t shut the city down. After every terrorist attack, New Yorkers are told by city politicians and administrators to go about their daily lives. Not so with this virus. The Big Apple is now in the process of closing. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, Carnegie Hall, the New York Philharmonic, Madison Square Garden, and the Barkley Center are all closed for business. Restaurants and bars are at half capacity, assuming they haven’t already put the “closed” sign on the front door. Times Square, normally packed with tourists snapping selfies, is a virtual ghost town. The same goes for Grand Central Terminal, where one can walk across the main corridor without getting run into by somebody towing a suitcase and running to catch the train.

Metro-North, the train system linking towns in Westchester and Connecticut, has registered a 50% drop in ridership. On a normal day during rush hour, you would be lucky to find a seat on the subway. Today, you can practically have an entire subway car to yourself. It’s oddly satisfying to not have somebody breathing down your neck, yet bone-chilling, as if we are moments away from doomsday. Ditmars Boulevard, normally bustling on Friday and Saturday nights as people file into the many bars and restaurants lining the street, was the land of tumbleweeds this weekend. Supermarkets are now the center of activity in New York, with toilet paper, hand soap, and sanitizer as valuable as gold.

The so-called “greatest city in the world” has essentially transformed into a small town in Kansas, where there is nothing to do but watch television, play board games, and crack open a beer in the safe confines of your own home. 

As New Yorkers who expect everything at a moment’s notice, we aren’t used to this kind of phenomenon. Unfortunately, if Dr. Fauci’s medical opinion is a sign of things to come, New York City will become one giant bubble of boredom, a word one doesn’t normally use to describe the “City that Never Sleeps." 

Daniel R. DePetris is a columnist at the Washington Examiner and a regular contributor to the National Interest.    

Image: A surgical mask is seen for sale at a souvenir stall in Times Square as the global coronavirus outbreak continued in Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S., March 13, 2020. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly