NYC and Me vs the CoronaVirus
Mar. 17th, 2020 05:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Sigh - the bizarre roller coaster ride from hell that is 2020 continues. Apparently there are plans in place to put NYC into "Shelter in Place" (which I've been worrying about for the past two months, it's one of the many reasons my shoulders were hurting so badly. Yes, as you all know from reading this blog, I've been obsessively watching this dumb thing for two months now. What can I say? I have a rather morbid fascination with plagues, epidemics and pandemics.)
3:00 p.m. Following up on remarks he made earlier, Mayor Bill de Blasio warned New Yorkers to prepare for a possible shelter-in-place rule that could come within the next 48 hours.
"This is a reality that is being talked about because this crisis continues to grow," de Blasio said. "Even though a decision hasn't been made by the city or state, New Yorkers should be prepared right now for the possibility of a shelter in place order."
The city now has 814 confirmed cases of coronavirus, 170 more cases that what the governor announced in the morning. With expanded testing capacity, the numbers have been climbing rapidly throughout the day. By Thursday, the city's public health labs should be able to perform 5,000 tests a day.
De Blasio did not specify what a stay-in-place order would look like in New York City, a city of 8.6 million people. Under the state of emergency, the mayor can establish curfews and order people off the streets and out of public spaces.
Earlier, Cuomo said that any new restrictions would need to be statewide, or possibly regional, to prevent individuals from trying to relocate themselves and risk further spreading the virus.
The mayor said he was not speaking for the governor but that a decision needed to be made very soon and that it would be made with the state. "Our teams are talking to get to a resolution," he said.
Melissa DeRosa, the secretary to the governor, issued the following statement: "The emergency policies that have been issued are of statewide impact, and the Governor is making every effort to coordinate these policies with our surrounding states. Any blanket quarantine or shelter in place policy would require State action and as the Governor has said, there is no consideration of that for any locality at this time."
On Tuesday, a shelter-in-place order went into effect in six counties in the San Francisco Bay area. Residents are now prohibited from leaving their home except for “essential” activities and travel.
[Our Governor has more or less nixed this idea - mainly because it's very easy to just flee NYC to another state that isn't on lock-down. (We're not Italy, there's no border patrols and they can't afford a Swat Team to keep us from leaving NYC.) Also, it's hard to patrol - and it would kill our economy, and to be honest, we are kind of already doing this. He doesn't want to go too far.]
My crazy workplace has finally put about 85% of its office workers on remote status. My project managers will be working remotely from home tomorrow. Only the people needed to keep the trains going or in operation and the system running are still in place. I'm curious to see if the Mayor and Governor decide to shut down the trains - if they do, that will be hard for health care workers to get to and from various locals.
This reminds me of Italy - where you could only leave to get groceries and pharmaceuticals.
I envy John Scalzi and my brother - who have plenty of supplies, pretty much work from home already, have pets, and large houses with lots of land around them.
OTOH - I kind of like being in an apartment building - but I will have to leave said apartment to pick up my mail downstairs (mother is sending me surgical gloves and hand sanitizer - shhh, tell no one), and laundry (the gloves are for doing laundry).
I do have supplies. I should be fine for three weeks. And I can work from home - so I have something to do. Also, have plenty of entertainment available. Plus connections on social media -- I tend to be here mostly any way.
But I have to get that blood pressure meds. I'm more worried about it than the essential tremor meds which should last longer. The blood pressure meds that I have may make two more weeks if that.
2. From Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams on FB:
🔹Rideshares and car pools have been banned by executive order; there can be only one passenger per vehicle (except families).
🔹 Alternate side parking has been suspended starting on 3/18 through 3/24; further suspensions will be updated closer to 3/24.
🔹Tonight at 6 PM, an alert will be sent to all NYC-area cell phones encouraging everyone to sign up for proactive info by texting COVID to 692-692 (COVIDESP for Spanish).
🔹NYC Health + Hospitals is working with a private firm to increase testing capacity by 5,000 tests per day.
🔹Parents and guardians of New York City Department of Education students with disabilities should send any questions to specialeducation@schools.nyc.gov.
🔹 The City will be opening an initial 100 centers to provide for the care and instruction of City workers' children.
🔹As of today, all New York City Department of Parks & Recreation recreation centers and nature centers are closed to the public until further notice.
🔹 Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced an agreement with the State Legislature to provide immediate paid sick leave assistance for New Yorkers impacted by COVID-19.
🔹 The New York State Attorney General is temporarily halting the collection of state medical and student debt owed to the State that was referred to her office.
🔹 The U.S. Department of the Treasury has announced that Americans will have until 7/15 to file their 2019 returns for up to $1 million in income.
🔹New York City has issued 550 violations totaling $275,000 in fines to retailers accused of price gouging on items in high demand during the COVID-19 pandemic.
🔹Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez will stop prosecuting low-level offenses “that do not jeopardize public safety.”
🔹Public health experts predict the spread of COVID-19 will peak in 45 days.
New York has been a busy little beaver lately. Once they gave up on the Federal Government - they went nuts.
PLEASE REMEMBER:
🔹If you feel sick, stay home.
🔹Utilize telemedicine pre-screening whenever possible if you feel symptoms, to alleviate burdens on ERs.
🔹Practice good hygiene and social distancing.
Until I got home - social distancing was almost impossible. It's kind of hard to do in NYC grocery stores, subways, and pharmacies. Just saying. It's also hard to do at times on the sidewalks. But I did try. Work was impossible, not to mention stressful. Cubical land is not created for social distancing. I spent a lot of time worrying that I'd spread it to people or get it myself. My hands were burning - I'd wash them, then wash them again with hand sanitizer.
3. My brother thinks this is the calm before the storm. But there is good news.
Photos of Volunteers Who Get the First Trial Vaccine in Seattle
I told him that I might end up fleeing to his place in Kinderhook after this is over-- and live in either his loft or the barn. The barn has it's own bathroom and is ventilated, so that is an option. Also easier to get into.
He told me that he had the perimeter booby trapped, so to make sure I gave him the heads up first.
The crazy thing about all of this? Is too much of this fits neatly with the plot of that sci-fi novel I was writing (first in my head in 2010 and then on the computer in 2015) - the one called the Sancricity of Water. Except the virus in that book was more a cure for ailments brought down by aliens, that had the nasty side-effect for elderly folks and some people, of turning them into mutated zombies. I called the plague "The Big Mutant Zombie Apocalypse That Wasn't". I coined this term in 2010.
Also Trump was President - because if you are writing an apocalyptic novel - he's a good pick. And a character based on my brother moved to Hawaii for a period of time, only to return and have a farm up North, where my protagonist flees too.
Yes, this is playing out like a really badly written dystopian sci-fi novel.
4. Weirdly, I got work done today. Set up teams in Microsoft Teams - where we can share files and chat and hold meetings. Also sent a word contract to a co-worker who is trying to put together a contract on the fly. And made sure idiotic boss has my cell phone number.
Honestly, I think my workplace and everything else will be very different after this.
[ETA: Apparently there's 19 Million people in NYS. 12 million of that is in NYC. And they've done 10,000 tests to date. With 1,709 infected.]
3:00 p.m. Following up on remarks he made earlier, Mayor Bill de Blasio warned New Yorkers to prepare for a possible shelter-in-place rule that could come within the next 48 hours.
"This is a reality that is being talked about because this crisis continues to grow," de Blasio said. "Even though a decision hasn't been made by the city or state, New Yorkers should be prepared right now for the possibility of a shelter in place order."
The city now has 814 confirmed cases of coronavirus, 170 more cases that what the governor announced in the morning. With expanded testing capacity, the numbers have been climbing rapidly throughout the day. By Thursday, the city's public health labs should be able to perform 5,000 tests a day.
De Blasio did not specify what a stay-in-place order would look like in New York City, a city of 8.6 million people. Under the state of emergency, the mayor can establish curfews and order people off the streets and out of public spaces.
Earlier, Cuomo said that any new restrictions would need to be statewide, or possibly regional, to prevent individuals from trying to relocate themselves and risk further spreading the virus.
The mayor said he was not speaking for the governor but that a decision needed to be made very soon and that it would be made with the state. "Our teams are talking to get to a resolution," he said.
Melissa DeRosa, the secretary to the governor, issued the following statement: "The emergency policies that have been issued are of statewide impact, and the Governor is making every effort to coordinate these policies with our surrounding states. Any blanket quarantine or shelter in place policy would require State action and as the Governor has said, there is no consideration of that for any locality at this time."
On Tuesday, a shelter-in-place order went into effect in six counties in the San Francisco Bay area. Residents are now prohibited from leaving their home except for “essential” activities and travel.
[Our Governor has more or less nixed this idea - mainly because it's very easy to just flee NYC to another state that isn't on lock-down. (We're not Italy, there's no border patrols and they can't afford a Swat Team to keep us from leaving NYC.) Also, it's hard to patrol - and it would kill our economy, and to be honest, we are kind of already doing this. He doesn't want to go too far.]
My crazy workplace has finally put about 85% of its office workers on remote status. My project managers will be working remotely from home tomorrow. Only the people needed to keep the trains going or in operation and the system running are still in place. I'm curious to see if the Mayor and Governor decide to shut down the trains - if they do, that will be hard for health care workers to get to and from various locals.
This reminds me of Italy - where you could only leave to get groceries and pharmaceuticals.
I envy John Scalzi and my brother - who have plenty of supplies, pretty much work from home already, have pets, and large houses with lots of land around them.
OTOH - I kind of like being in an apartment building - but I will have to leave said apartment to pick up my mail downstairs (mother is sending me surgical gloves and hand sanitizer - shhh, tell no one), and laundry (the gloves are for doing laundry).
I do have supplies. I should be fine for three weeks. And I can work from home - so I have something to do. Also, have plenty of entertainment available. Plus connections on social media -- I tend to be here mostly any way.
But I have to get that blood pressure meds. I'm more worried about it than the essential tremor meds which should last longer. The blood pressure meds that I have may make two more weeks if that.
2. From Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams on FB:
🔹Rideshares and car pools have been banned by executive order; there can be only one passenger per vehicle (except families).
🔹 Alternate side parking has been suspended starting on 3/18 through 3/24; further suspensions will be updated closer to 3/24.
🔹Tonight at 6 PM, an alert will be sent to all NYC-area cell phones encouraging everyone to sign up for proactive info by texting COVID to 692-692 (COVIDESP for Spanish).
🔹NYC Health + Hospitals is working with a private firm to increase testing capacity by 5,000 tests per day.
🔹Parents and guardians of New York City Department of Education students with disabilities should send any questions to specialeducation@schools.nyc.gov.
🔹 The City will be opening an initial 100 centers to provide for the care and instruction of City workers' children.
🔹As of today, all New York City Department of Parks & Recreation recreation centers and nature centers are closed to the public until further notice.
🔹 Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced an agreement with the State Legislature to provide immediate paid sick leave assistance for New Yorkers impacted by COVID-19.
🔹 The New York State Attorney General is temporarily halting the collection of state medical and student debt owed to the State that was referred to her office.
🔹 The U.S. Department of the Treasury has announced that Americans will have until 7/15 to file their 2019 returns for up to $1 million in income.
🔹New York City has issued 550 violations totaling $275,000 in fines to retailers accused of price gouging on items in high demand during the COVID-19 pandemic.
🔹Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez will stop prosecuting low-level offenses “that do not jeopardize public safety.”
🔹Public health experts predict the spread of COVID-19 will peak in 45 days.
New York has been a busy little beaver lately. Once they gave up on the Federal Government - they went nuts.
PLEASE REMEMBER:
🔹If you feel sick, stay home.
🔹Utilize telemedicine pre-screening whenever possible if you feel symptoms, to alleviate burdens on ERs.
🔹Practice good hygiene and social distancing.
Until I got home - social distancing was almost impossible. It's kind of hard to do in NYC grocery stores, subways, and pharmacies. Just saying. It's also hard to do at times on the sidewalks. But I did try. Work was impossible, not to mention stressful. Cubical land is not created for social distancing. I spent a lot of time worrying that I'd spread it to people or get it myself. My hands were burning - I'd wash them, then wash them again with hand sanitizer.
3. My brother thinks this is the calm before the storm. But there is good news.
Photos of Volunteers Who Get the First Trial Vaccine in Seattle
I told him that I might end up fleeing to his place in Kinderhook after this is over-- and live in either his loft or the barn. The barn has it's own bathroom and is ventilated, so that is an option. Also easier to get into.
He told me that he had the perimeter booby trapped, so to make sure I gave him the heads up first.
The crazy thing about all of this? Is too much of this fits neatly with the plot of that sci-fi novel I was writing (first in my head in 2010 and then on the computer in 2015) - the one called the Sancricity of Water. Except the virus in that book was more a cure for ailments brought down by aliens, that had the nasty side-effect for elderly folks and some people, of turning them into mutated zombies. I called the plague "The Big Mutant Zombie Apocalypse That Wasn't". I coined this term in 2010.
Also Trump was President - because if you are writing an apocalyptic novel - he's a good pick. And a character based on my brother moved to Hawaii for a period of time, only to return and have a farm up North, where my protagonist flees too.
Yes, this is playing out like a really badly written dystopian sci-fi novel.
4. Weirdly, I got work done today. Set up teams in Microsoft Teams - where we can share files and chat and hold meetings. Also sent a word contract to a co-worker who is trying to put together a contract on the fly. And made sure idiotic boss has my cell phone number.
Honestly, I think my workplace and everything else will be very different after this.
[ETA: Apparently there's 19 Million people in NYS. 12 million of that is in NYC. And they've done 10,000 tests to date. With 1,709 infected.]