Tuesday: We’re still in the midst of an international, national, and local pandemic, though recently that’s been harder to remember. At some point in the past week, The Kid and I both forgot masks until stepping into the elevator, had to scurry back. We’re still washing hands assiduously, but the mood feels less dire. Maybe we’re kidding ourselves.
Energy from the George Floyd #BLM protests has suffused the city. Without question being cooped up for three months has boosted demonstrator enthusiasm (as well as attendance — people haven’t been at work). The vast majority of protesters I’ve seen have worn masks (along with fewer than half of police officers). Still, clusters of tightly packed people chanting together for long stretches — though Covid-19 transmits most effectively indoors, the likelihood of viral spread seems high.
New York City this week began Phase 1 of reopening its economy, the state’s last region to meet seven public health metrics set by Gov. Cuomo’s office. (Declines in new Covid-19 deaths, new hospitalizations, total hospitalizations; sufficient free hospital beds, ICU beds, testing capacity, tracers.)
Still, about 500 people a day are getting infected (half the rate of last month, with more people getting tested). More than 205,000 city residents have been infected so far; almost 22,000 have died.
Now back at full strength: manufacturing, agriculture, construction, wholesale trade. Landscapers and gardeners can return to work. Retailers can open only for curbside or in-store pick-up. Facilities offering socially distant sports (golf, tennis) can reopen. That means up to 400,000 New Yorkers back to work. Subways are expecting up to 300,000 additional daily riders on (for now) spanking-clean trains.
The Girlfriend, our children, and I don’t plan to take subways any time soon; we’re using her car, our bikes, our feet.
Phase 2 — already reached by most of the state — means offices, most stores can reopen. Car dealerships, salons, barber shops can open with limited capacity; restaurants can offer outdoor dining. Churches, synagogues, and mosques can open at 25 percent capacity. The city expects to hit that phase next month.
For now we’re like creatures emerging from hibernation, eager for signs of rejuvenation. We’ve been awakened this week by jackhammers, trucks, front loaders; birdsong’s more intermittent: back to normal.
Sunday morning dawns gorgeous; we meet a friend, walk to a #BLM protest action at Fort Greene Park called a “lie-in.” On the way we discuss U.S. protest precedents. There’ve been longer actions (the Birmingham bus boycott, say). The May 1970 Cambodia bombing protests (which included Kent State’s) led to closing several college campuses. But we’re hard-pressed to name any that’s gone into a second week in this many locations, with this many demonstrators. We wonder about long-term mental health implications for organizers and protesters; burnout seems inevitable.
Upon arrival we see a few hundred people sitting on the park’s patchy grass, holding signs, drinking from coffee mugs; a handful of cops stand around, bored. A middle-aged white man starts yelling at people: “They keep us safe! Don’t you understand? They keep us safe!”: a police defender. No one engages him; a minute later, he walks on.
After 30 minutes I ask someone distributing hand sanitizer if the action will start soon.
“This is the action,” he says. “It’s a lie-in.”
It makes sense; Saturday’s demonstrations were massive; a half-dozen more are planned for later in the day across the city. Everybody’s tired. The variety of actions, many family friendly, socially distant — perhaps this is the organizers’ gentle way of preventing burnout.
Sunday afternoon The Girlfriend, The Kid, and I drive to Washington Heights for a picnic with my sister in Fort Tryon Park, each group bringing its own plates, cups, utensils. The park was crowded but not packed; groups stayed physically distanced; people wore masks on the paths (set up for one-way walking), pulled them down while sitting with friends. We sat under a tree near the Hudson River, ate roasted beets, pesto pasta, Persian rice, banana bread, cookies. A couple, annoyingly, let their small dog run free; the man kept rising to pick it up when it strayed too far or got in scraps with other dogs (including my sister’s). A nearby group blasted music I took to be bomba. All seemed semi-normal. The drive to and fro took traffic-free 30 minutes — half what it might take on a typical sunny spring weekend.
While the Corona wave for the moment ebbs in New York City, it’s flowing in other parts of the country, including in some states that reopened four weeks ago. Arizona, Texas, and Florida are seeing alarming numbers of new cases and hospitalizations. Arkansas, Kentucky, North and South Carolina are also watching cases rise.
But Georgia, which also opened early, has seen numbers plateau. And one of the most guarded states to reopen, California, is seeing case spikes — mostly in the south and southeast, but also in the Central Valley.
Overall, trends are bad in at least a third of the nation.
The president has stopped talking about the pandemic. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he won’t talk about more economic relief until the last part of July, after temporary unemployment relief (which I and tens of millions of Americans are now using) expires — that’ll pressure Democrats to give him other priorities and cut a deal. They seem to hope Americans adjust to a new normal: regular viral waves lap at different parts of the nation, and we get used to routine Covid-19 death tolls of 500 to 1,000 people a day.
Maybe we're weak-willed. Maybe we're just bored. Whatever the case, the outlook remains alarming.
Tuesday features another gorgeous, warm spring evening. The Girlfriend and I decide to walk from our respective apartments to Barclays Center, see if it’s hosting any protests. Traffic isn’t back to normal, but it’s perhaps half or two-thirds of the way there.
I pass a German brewhouse serving from a reconfigured to-go window; a dozen couples sit on nearby on benches, lawn chairs, the sidewalk, eating brats, drinking beer from plastic cups. (The repurposing of restaurants scrambling to survive deserves close study; Olmsted, one of our local favorites, has reopened as a grocery store.)
Barclays is quiet. About 20 protesters hang around, holding signs; about 200 cops, almost none masked, chat in groups of four or six. Three women stroll across the plaza carrying Target bags, laughing delightedly. Maybe demonstrators will gather later; around 10 p.m. Monday hundreds of bicyclists rode on my street, shouting, ringing bells, encouraging horn honking. We decide not to wait, walk home, watch the sunset from my apartment windows.
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