People line up to test Govt-19 in New York City on December 17, 2021 (AFP / Ed JONES)
Brooklyn restaurants are closing one after another due to rising pollution, and queues for testing are on the rise: New York fears it will revive the 2020 dream of being the city center of the world of the Kovit-19 epidemic.
On Saturday evening, New York State, the fourth most populous country in the world with a population of about 20 million, announced a record number of positive cases for the corona virus for the second day in a row, with nearly 22,000 infections.
In Brooklyn, since the weekend, in the fashionable Greenpoint district, a dozen bars and restaurants have temporarily lowered their screens after sudden lawsuits between their staff or customers.
Near McCarren Park, 30 people lined up in front of a parked medical van to provide quick checks.
“It looks like March 2020,” said Spencer Ryder, 27, who lives in the neighborhood, works in the finance department and is experimenting with his friend Katie Connolly, a student, because their friends favor Covit-19.
– “Really creepy” –
“Looking at these lines (…) it’s like starting all over again,” he told AFPTV, his partner “which is very scary”.
It must be said that in the spring of 2020 New York was brought to its knees by the first wave of epidemics.
The city, with a population of 8.5 million, has long been nicknamed the “Never Sleepless City” and has been completely deserted for weeks like a sci-fi movie.
Manhattan’s massive routes were animated only by the tireless sirens of emergency services, and many hospitals and morgues were forced to store victims’ bodies in refrigerated trucks.
At least 34,000 New Yorkers have lost their lives since the spring of 2020 and the city, especially Manhattan, has not really regained its legendary vibrancy before the health crisis.
– “Back from the beginning” –
Jolanda Serlanis, a 54-year-old Polish woman who came in for the test, warned, “We’re really back to normal, it could be worse,” than it was in March 2020.
Covit-19 tested on a man in front of a van parked on New York Street on December 17, 2021 (AFP / Ed JONES)
“It’s very scary and it’s very worrying because we hoped it would be okay,” says this employee at the restaurant.
Tension has overtaken the United States over the rapid spread of the Omigron variant of Govit-19. President Joe Biden on Thursday predicted a “winter of serious illness and death” for those not vaccinated.
As of December 1, the number of new cases per day across the country averaged 86,000; On December 14, it was 117,000, an increase of about 35% in two weeks. According to Johns Hopkins University, the official death toll from the outbreak has risen to 800,000 on Tuesday from 2020.
The “Omicron has arrived” variant is also mentioned by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.
View of the Manhattan Skyline and New York East River on December 14, 2021 (AFP / Ed JONES)
“We have to admit it: he’s moving too fast and we need to be fast,” the Democratic councilor told CNN on Friday, just days before he was due to hand over his chosen successor, Eric Adams, on January 1st.
Mr. De Blasio imposed the mandatory vaccination on municipal officials and, on Dec. 27, in principle, on the entire private sector, i.e. 184,000 businesses and businesses. But Mr. Adams said nothing would enforce this decision.
– Broadway Panic –
Just before Christmas, while New York was waiting for the arrival of its tourists, there was panic in Broadway’s famous theater and music district over the cancellation of shows due to positive cases within the troops.
People line up for a quick Govt-19 test on New York Street on December 17, 2021 (AFP / Ed JONES)
Last Friday night, the production says the next four shows of “Rockets” at Radio City Music Hall were canceled due to “growing difficulties of infection”.
The concert “Hamilton” was canceled without warning Thursday evening: “We only got on the plane one day + to see Hamilton”, an angry AFPTV couple from Michigan protested in front of Tara and Myron Upston.
On Saturday night at Manhattan’s Rockefeller Plaza, it was announced that the popular entertainment show “Saturday Night Live” would be filmed without an audience and with a small group.
Edward Masih, who runs a Lebanese grocery store in Brooklyn, remains open at the moment, but he fears that the Kovit-19 wave will cause a new influx of citizens into northern, green and upscale suburbs of New York. The case when Manhattan Island became vacant in 2020.
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