'It's chaotic': New York street partying fuels
fears of coronavirus resurgence
Cases of Covid-19 among the young are on the rise as
outdoor drinking draws crowds in neighbourhoods across the city
Miranda
Bryant in New York
Thu 23 Jul
2020 08.00 BSTLast modified on Thu 23 Jul 2020 13.14 BST
Motorcycles
revved, waiters served drinks and food in busy outdoor street seating areas
and, on the pavement, people gathered to sip to-go drinks.
On Saturday
night in Astoria, in Queens, it was almost as if coronavirus had never hit New
York City.
“We were
inside for such a long time and people are getting tested. We’re much more
comfortable in our skins,” said Adil Mehmood, 33, a teacher from East Elmhurst,
queueing for a table at a restaurant in Astoria without a mask.
In April,
the city was the center of the global coronavirus pandemic, with the daily
death toll reaching almost 800 people at its height. But as cases of Covid-19
have steadied and lockdown restrictions have eased, this stretch of Steinway
Street has emerged as an unofficial party street.
Some other
post-pandemic going out hotspots include the Lower East Side in Manhattan and
Williamsburg in Brooklyn.
With indoor
nightlife still banned, crowds of largely younger people – many not wearing
face masks – have reportedly continued partying in Astoria on other nights long
after the bars and restaurants closed.
But
standing on the other side of the road from Mehmood in Astoria, outside a
barber shop, Omar Melendez, 39, who has a newborn at home, said he was “living
in fear”.
“It’s
chaotic. Everything’s going back to what it was. There’s no social distancing,
many people not protecting themselves.”
The
heating, ventilation and air conditioning technician from Astoria said he was
not going to bars. “I have drinks at my house, it’s safer. I don’t think people
know what the word pandemic means.”
New York’s
mayor, Bill de Blasio, has branded the situation in Astoria “unacceptable”.
His office
said it had suspended one establishment, Brik Astoria, from the city’s open
restaurants programme for a week and it will be required to submit a social
distancing plan before it can reopen. It said the sherriff’s office, which
handed out face masks in Astoria on Saturday night, was patrolling “high-impact
areas” on weekends.
The New
York governor, Andrew Cuomo, who recently introduced a “three strikes and
you’re closed” rule for bars and restaurants that don’t comply, on Monday said
gatherings among young people across the state were “getting worse” and
threatened to roll back the opening plan and shut all establishments.
Issuing a
stern warning to young people, he said: “Don’t be stupid. What they’re doing is
stupid and reckless for themselves and for other people. And it has to stop.”
Many bar
and restaurant workers do not have a choice as to whether they go to work –
even if they are uncomfortable with their employer’s approach to safety.
Anthony
Advincula, public affairs officer and national policy coordinator for
Restaurant Opportunities Centres United, said: “They need a job right now, but
they also need to have good health, so it’s a catch-22.”
He said
state and local governments “must hold accountable all employers that continue
to put their workers at risk during and after reopening”.
While
overall coronavirus cases across southern and western states of the US continue
to surge and deaths rise, New York’s positive test rate is stable at about 1%.
On Sunday there were 284 new cases in New York City and eight deaths across the
state.
But in
recent weeks New York City has seen an uptick in new cases among young adults.
Between the beginning and end of June, the case rate among 20-to-29-year-olds
jumped from 26.63 per 100,000 to 34.64.
Dr Lorna
Thorpe, an epidemiology professor and director of the division of epidemiology
at NYU Langone Health, said: “The total number of cases remains fairly constant
but the proportion that are among young adults has increased.”
Although
she said household transmission was probably down, now she believes most cases
are either from other states or from socialising, which tends to involve
younger people.
While less
risky than gathering indoors, Dr Thorpe said people crowding on streets to
party is “deeply concerning”.
“We know
that there is a lot of transmission of coronavirus around the country and it
takes events like this to suddenly have a cluster develop and as more clusters
develop, the more difficulty we will have to control them.”
Taking
risks on a night out at the weekend can also reduce people’s vigilance in other
parts of life, she said.
“It’s not
easy to sustain all of the social distancing behaviours that we have been
sustaining, but it is important to sustain as many of them as possible.”
Dr Ashwin
Vasan, assistant professor at Columbia University medical center and president
and CEO of the mental health charity Fountain House, said that while on an
epidemiological level the partying is “not great”, authorities should be
looking at the driving factors behind it such as unemployment and the stalling
of education.
“You’ve got
this mass uncertainty, combined with four or five months with relative
isolation and in an environment where, even though in New York City the
messages have been pretty clear, in a wider environment, a media environment
and a national environment, political environment where these basic public
health strategies are being politicised and called into question.”
For many
out socialising on the streets of New York, mask-wearing still appears to be an
issue.
In the East
Village, which before outdoor dining was permitted became a hotspot for street
drinking, many of the bars and restaurants have cordoned-off areas. But on
Saturday night groups of people still gathered close together on the streets –
many unmasked.
Outside the
William Barnacle Tavern, Genie Gilmore-Otway said she felt safe working because
she is careful, but that she sometimes has to ask people to wear masks when
ordering. “They’re young, they think they’re safe or just can’t get it.”
Her husband,
tavern owner Lorcan Otway, said he was worried about a second wave of
coronavirus. On CCTV he has seen people walking down the street coughing and
then sharing drinks.
“When 99%
of us are being careful, it’s absolutely destroyed by people flaunting their
lack of regard for each other.”
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