Two Quebeckers who have lived in New York for several years are discovering for the first time a deserted, silent and sometimes terrifying metropolis during the coronavirus pandemic.
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“I can open the door and hear the birds, which has never happened,” says Catherine Choronzey, who lives in the heart of Manhattan.
- Listen to doctor Julien Cavanagh’s interview in New York with Jonathan Trudeau on QUB Radio:
Almost half of COVID-19 cases in the United States are in New York State. The metropolis is hard hit by the coronavirus.
“It is a situation of health disaster that we are experiencing in New York,” explained Dr.r Julien J. Cavanagh at LCN, Saturday. It’s a show I never thought I’d see in my career. ”
He wanted to send a message to Quebecers on the importance of containment. “If your confinement is effective […] you have the historic chance to contain the spread, ”he said.
The “city that never sleeps” has been forced to rest and it’s a big challenge for New Yorkers, says Mme Choronzey, who moved there seven years ago for his Masters.
“It’s against their nature, this passivity,” she remarks, adding that they are used to a frantic pace.
Deprived of the incessant hubbub of the Big Apple, the 36-year-old woman now tames the “apocalyptic” calm.
No more horns from cars stuck in traffic jams, patrol sirens, the noise of trucks unloading their cargo or even the cries and laughter of children in parks. “We associate sounds with certain places, but there it no longer corresponds”, blows the mother of a 20-month-old boy.
She and her son, husband all got sick about two weeks ago, but she doesn’t know if it was the flu or COVID-19.
“It was still impossible to be diagnosed, there was no test available,” she said, describing the response of the authorities in New York as very late, compared to Quebec.
Photo AFP
A delivery bike cruising through the middle of a deserted New York street on Saturday.
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Fear of the metro
Across the famous Brooklyn Bridge, for the first time, Marie-Claude Gallant, who has lived in New York for three years, is afraid to take the subway because it is too empty.
The 40-year-old engineer works in the management of a large building stock, where the offices of many essential services are located. As soon as a new case of coronavirus is declared, she must send a team to disinfect the premises.
While on her way to Manhattan this week, three police officers stopped her to make sure she had the right to be there.
And when she waited for the metro, she was “totally alone”. “I couldn’t believe it,” said the Quebecker.
Never seen
She’s never seen anything like it, not in the middle of the night, and even less during the morning rush hour, when she sometimes has to let a train or two pass before she can get on.
She realizes that the crowds gave her some security. A friend was reportedly threatened with the tip of a knife this week, she said, adding that the latter fled into the street, just as deserted.
Mme Gallant thus asked his employer to work from home for his safety.
♦ US President Donald Trump announced on Saturday night that he was finally giving up on quarantining the states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, after raising the possibility earlier today and causing turmoil in the region.
♦ New York state is by far the most affected by the coronavirus in the United States, with 52,318 cases and 728 deaths.
Cases continue to explode
Number of cases in the United States
- 7 days ago: 24 000
- Saturday : 124 000
Death toll in the United States
- 7 days ago: 280
- Saturday : 2185
Number of cases in New York
- 7 days ago: 10 000
- Saturday : 52 318
– Source : Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center
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