STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – I’m still confident that this coronavirus outbreak is not the opening scenes of some end-of-the-world movie, where the lucky survivors in a few weeks will be left to wander the empty streets of the world, dodging gangs and looking for food and medicine.
At least I’m pretty confident. But I wonder. Either way, coronavirus has already changed how we go about our daily lives in New York.
As predicated, coronavirus, or COVID-19, finally landed in New York after tearing its way across the globe. And even though it hasn’t yet taken on the deadly dimensions that we’ve seen in places like China and Iran, we’re still feeling the fallout.
Yes, even in New York, the city that never sleeps. Where we don’t let something like a measly pandemic get in the way of the good times.
We’ve already seen things that look like over-reactions. We’ve seen runs on drug stores and supermarkets. Hand sanitizer has flown off the shelves. So has toilet paper. And pet food.
Pet food? If this pandemic really hits, we’re going to have bigger problems than making sure our dogs and cats get their meals and snackies. We may need that food ourselves, for actual survival.
And, you know, in a worst-cast, apocalypse-now, bodies-lying-in-the-street scenario, the animals that survive will have plenty to chow on, know what I mean?
It all feels like that mad dash for milk, bread and eggs that happens every time a big snowstorm is predicted. And it might ultimately be just as useless.
But real things are happening out there.
Schools are cancelling overseas trips. Kids who return from abroad will have to prove that they’re coronavirus-free. We twitch every time a colleague at work or someone next to us on mass transit coughs or sneezes. Nobody wants to shake hands or hug hello. People are canceling long-planned vacations. A family member of mine was told by their firm to work from home for the next week or two, just as a precaution.
Big-time sports events like the NCAA Final Four and the Tokyo Summer Olympics might be held without fans in attendance. Sponsors are pulling out of the South By Southwest music festival. The stock market has been on a rollercoaster ride. Coronavirus is hitting the world in its pocketbook. It’s casting its shadow on the presidential election.
If this is the level of alarm we’re seeing now, we’d better hope that coronavirus doesn’t really blow up here. People will be running around like their hair was on fire.
Because how prepared are we really?
We don’t even have enough testing kits to go around. Staten Island doesn’t have a public health hospital. What would happen if we suddenly had hundreds of patients that needed to be hospitalized? Do we have enough beds? How can we be sure that all those people who are “self-quarantining” in the city are actually staying indoors?
And as with any emergency that dominates the news cycle for days on end, rumors have exploded on social media. Are we really being told the truth about how bad things are? Someone told someone else that there were a lot more victims in the hospital than anybody wants to acknowledge.
The same thing happened after Hurricane Sandy. There were a lot of unfounded rumors flying around. A lot more people had died, it was whispered. The bodies were being hidden somewhere. None of it was true.
I still hope that coronavirus isn’t going to reach truly epic proportions here. It could all still blow over. Or we could see that indeed some people are more at-risk than others. We won’t have to worry that coronavirus is suddenly going to jump onto us from the person who just walked by.
Still, we won’t soon going to forget COVID-19.
CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE:
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