When we first met in April, the street in front of SUNY Hospital in Brooklyn was closed to traffic. Tents had been set up outside to screen the dozens of patients who arrived every day.
Behind another hospital in the district, refrigerated trucks had been parked to store bodies.
Healthcare workers near SUNY Hospital in Brooklyn.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Raphaël Bouvier-Auclair
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Today, the scenery has radically changed. The pedestrians circulate, masked, in the street in front of the hospital. A few hundred yards away, children can be seen playing in a park that was locked in the spring.
If life resumes, even timidly, it is because the health picture has also changed.
In April, New York was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. The virus has claimed about 20,000 victims in the metropolis.
At the worst of the crisis, more than 5,000 new positive cases were detected every day. As of mid-September, the daily average was less than 300 cases.
The population and the public authorities have been so traumatized by this wave and this apocalyptic number of deaths in the city and the state that this return to normal is very slowly.
The doctor explains that many New Yorkers have already been exposed to the virus. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cites a figure of 22%.
Doctor Julien Cavanagh notices that the scenery has changed around SUNY Hospital in Brooklyn.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Raphaël Bouvier-Auclair
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Julien Cavanagh mainly attributes the low rate of infection to the measures put in place by the authorities, such as contact tracing operations and massive screening. Around 30,000 tests are carried out every day.
Visitors from states considered to be at risk, given their infection rate, should also self-isolate upon arrival in New York State.
In the metropolis, the resumption of activities is also done gradually. In fact, restaurant dining rooms are still closed. They can only reopen their doors at the end of the month, and their capacity will have to be limited to 25%.
A city in adaptation
The restrictions still in place have pushed residents and contractors to adjust. Terraces, which were rather rare in New York, have sprung up everywhere, encroaching on the streets.
Terraces have appeared all over the streets of New York, like here in Manhattan.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Raphaël Bouvier-Auclair
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It grew like mushrooms
, launches Antoine Clément, who has lived in the New York region for almost eight years.
If he sees these new spaces favorably, he sees that the city is far from having regained its vigor.
The parks and avenues are obviously more alive than during the spring containment measures. But traffic remains rather fluid compared to the major traffic jams that usually characterize this week of the United Nations General Assembly.
Like many tourist destinations around the world, New York has emptied of its international visitors. In recent weeks, local media have also made much of the residents who have chosen to leave the area.
The activity is more important than in April in Times Square, which remains deserted by international visitors.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Raphaël Bouvier-Auclair
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This summer, the firm Douglas Elliman observed a historic vacancy rate in certain areas of the city and a drop in rents on a scale never seen in nine years.
Antoine Clément underlines that with the uncertainty, in particular as for the resumption of cultural activities which remain suspended, New York loses its attractiveness.
Life is very expensive, it is very dense. We don’t have a balcony, we don’t have a yard. But these sacrifices are applied because there are benefits and there, suddenly, there are benefits that have disappeared.
Some shops at a crossroads
In New York, where the unemployment rate is 12.5%, this uncertainty comes with economic hardship.
In the Brooklyn borough, BCakeNY pastry shop had to review its business model. The trade specialized in weddings and large events, which remain prohibited. Cupcakes are now sold there, which has kept the store open.
Dara Roach and the BCakeNY team in Brooklyn have reassessed their business model to adjust to the pandemic.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Raphaël Bouvier-Auclair
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But in the neighborhood, we see several vacant commercial premises.
It’s a big fear, because if the block empties, there will be less foot traffic, maybe more crime, and no one will want to come anymore.
, launches the CEO of the pastry shop, Dara Roach, who asks the city for more flexibility in terms of regulations.
Resilient, some traders refuse to give up. This is the case of Jimmy, met not far from the pastry shop, who is busy adapting the terrace of his restaurant for the winter. He expects the restrictions to remain in place for a while.
Restaurant owners like Jimmy tend to adapt their terraces for the winter, which promises to be difficult.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Raphaël Bouvier-Auclair
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The last thing New Yorkers want is a new wave of the epidemic that would force everything to shut down, because there, we know that the city’s economy would be really struggling to recover.
, notes doctor Julien Cavanagh, explaining the dilemma facing the leaders and residents of the largest city in the United States.
We finally hope that controlling the epidemic, preventing a second wave, that’s the lesson New York must teach the United States and the world.
, he concludes.
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