In memory of New Yorkers, New York City had never known this in 258 years: Tuesday, March 17, the traditional St. Patrick’s Day parade, the immutable Irish holiday celebrated in Manhattan since 1762, was canceled, as the Chinese Year of the Rat ceremonies before it in Chinatown. At the stroke of 11 am, however, at the crossing of 44th Street in Midtown, they were three fans of the green Erin, Patrick Grennan, Coleen Brady, and Richard McKenna, to parade a little lonely with their bilious and their Irish American flags intertwined, braving the invisible virus on Fifth Avenue.
Fifth Avenue
Where they should have been applauded by two million passers-by, the usual crowd, a few isolated onlookers, and the horns of the few municipal buses still in operation honored their tenacity. “The Irish were to go up Fifth Avenue today, even if there were only a handful of us,” said one of the three thieves.
“luck of the Irish”
The proverbial “luck of the Irish” this time was not enough. Impossible for this trio to go to mass in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, closed to the public but broadcast online, or to drink in the pubs of Midtown, all closed since Monday evening on the orders of Mayor Bill de Blasio, at the like 25,000 restaurants in the city. The threshold of 1,000 positive coronavirus cases has been reached in this mega-city of 8.6 million souls, hitherto rather carefree in the face of the threat. However, gatherings of more than fifty people were banned four days after the Broadway shows, and cinemas closed. At the same time, the benchmark value for “social distance” was set at six feet (two meters), especially in the queues at the supermarket.
New York’s Bill de Blasio
Proud of his Campanian origins and exaggeratedly worried about the city of his ancestors, Sant’Agata de ‘Goti, Bill de Blasio nevertheless experienced the worst difficulties of setting an example: this Monday, he had made his last visit gymnastics at the YMCA of its Brooklyn district, Park Slope, before theoretical closure for one month.
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Meghan McCain
Tuesday, during the now daily televised press conference, he warned his constituents that he would have to prepare for imminent confinement, like the measures decreed in Italy, France, and Spain. ” Pray for this city, and hold on to something, ” wrote Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Arizona senator John McCain and host of “The View” on ABC, located in downtown after a tweet from Bill de Blasio announcing the number of positive cases for the virus.
Ephemeral candidate for the 2020 Democratic primaries, de Blasio, is not alone in appearing, day after day, in front of the cameras. His worst political enemy, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, steals the show from the provincial capital, Albany, a green handkerchief in his jacket pocket to mark St. Patrick’s Day. Hostile to a ” shelter in place, “Cuomo signed an executive order Monday extending the governor’s special powers in times of crisis and prohibiting the mayor of New York City from taking such a measure without his agreement. ” We are New Yorkers,” he says to justify his refusal to impose any quarantine or curfew-like San Francisco, we are used to getting around the rules. “
Empire State Building
Empire State Building and Metropolitan closed with double towers, neon lights extinguished in the Theater District around Times Square, helicopters grounded for lack of demand to fly over the Statue of Liberty, Big Apple fears the worst economically, without the fifty million foreign visitors annual. But the emergency, as elsewhere, is above all health. Predicting a “peak” of contamination ” in forty-five days, “Governor Cuomo recognizes that the capacity of hospitals in intensive care is ” the number one problem. ” With 3000 beds equipped with oxygen, the capacities are far from the account, estimated between 18,600 and 37,200 in case of a surge.
World War II proved that America was able to focus attention and make all its equipment converge towards a common goal
New York Field hospital
The only good news is the confirmed erection of a field hospital with the help of the corps of army engineers and the federal agency for emergencies. On Wednesday, Donald Trump also announced that a hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, will be dispatched soon to New York Bay, at the request of Andrew Cuomo. But more federal aid will be needed for the largest city in the country, starting with its urban transport network, still in service despite a 60% drop in traffic, and which already requires a bailout of $ 4 billion.
Second World War
” The Second World War proved that America was able to focus attention and make all its equipment converge towards a common goal,” recalls an editorial in the New York Daily News. The levers were engaged and weapons, ships, tanks, planes, came out of the assembly lines. Can the public and private sectors do the same today and be up to the task, when it is no longer a question of weapons of war, but medical equipment? It would be better for all of us. “