Photo: Stock Unsplash
March 9, 2020 By Allie Griffin
With the number of coronavirus cases in New York increasing daily, Mayor Bill de Blasio advised New Yorkers to skip packed subway cars and to work from home if possible.
New York City now has 16 confirmed cases, including two in Queens, the Mayor said this morning. Yesterday, the city total was at 13 cases of novel coronavirus, or COVID-19 — but the mayor warned of triple-digit numbers in the coming weeks.
“I think we could well be at a hundred cases or hundreds of cases over the next two or three weeks,” de Blasio said at a press conference Sunday.
Statewide, there are more than 100 confirmed cases of coronavirus and the governor declared a state of emergency on Saturday.
As the number of cases increases, Mayor de Blasio said to avoid close contact, like crowded subway cars, as the virus spreads from close person-to-person contact.
“If you are traveling by subway and the train that comes up is all packed and you can possibly wait for the next train in the hopes it might be less packed, please do,” de Blasio said.
He said New Yorkers should walk or bike to work if they’re able to or hop on the bus if it’s less crowded than the subway.
He said employers who can institute telecommuting should do so and if not, they should stagger work times so that less people are commuting at the height of rush hours.
“Right now, at the height of rush hour, obviously people — we’ve all experienced it, we’ve all been the sardines in the subway. We’re in super close proximity,” de Blasio said. “We’d like to open that up a little more and one of the good ways to do it is to stagger work hours.”
COVID-19 is transmitted when respiratory droplets from a sneeze, cough or spit of an infected person is transferred directly into another person. According to city disease detectives, the virus doesn’t survive for more than two or three minutes in open air.
Health officials advise people to wash your hands for at least 20 seconds, use alcohol-based hand sanitizer, cough or sneeze into a tissue or your elbow and avoid touching your eyes, mouth and nose.
As of Sunday, 19 New York City residents were under mandatory quarantine and 2,176 are under voluntary home isolation.
Compared to the 16 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the city, there were 201 negative tests and 86 are still pending, the mayor told NY1 today.
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18 Comments
Better to just walk, it’s good for your health and when you show up to work sweating buckets you might just get the day off.
Shut up about it.
Universal healthcare- What the boss giveth the boss may taketh away., I guess you’re new to this.
@Universal Health Care – 1- The Employer Healthcare based system was put in place after WWII as form of employee enticement, during a post war wage freeze and was not meant to be permanent. 2- It’s the main reason Americans have the highest cost of Healthcare in the world. (3.5 Trillion spent in 2019, $11,000 per citizen) and still not everyone is covered. 3-That “Bernie Bro”is subsidizing your healthcare with the Employer Tax Credits. $1,000.00 (individual)- 3,000.00 (family) or 50% of annual premium. 4- Due to skyrocketing cost employers continuously cut cost and benefits annually. I personally have moved jobs out of the US because of healthcare costs for Citi- Bank, Chase and Deutsche Bank. You’re gullible if you believe your employer cares about the quality of your healthcare. You’ll be whistling a different tune once you need to access your company plan. I know people without healthcare who work extremely hard and way better informed than you.
All my older neighbors take the bus. It’s much nicer, but ok millennials, leave the front seats for seniors.
So instead of taking the crowded train we can take the crowded bus.
I would like to keep the private healthcare I worked hard and paid for…I don’t want to be on some crappy government program….Bernie Bros please stop attacking the working and middle classes who worked and earned something for themselves….there are 150 million of us on private healthcare and we will never vote for Bernie and his socialist revolution against working people…as a registered Dem I will vote for trump before I let the radicals take over our great nation…
Please! Get real! I left extra early. But so did everyone else. Packed 7train at 5:50am.
That’s crazy! Thanks de Blasio!!!
Goes around, comes around.
Corona virus is already around you. Corona means anger of sun.
Shut the hell up Bernie2020, obviously you are a trump supporter trying to make Bernie supporters look like idiots.
We need a recall measure for New York City and State. Ok, Bill: maybe you can do my job for me since you don’t seem to be doing job you were elected to. #whatanidiotheis
‘we’ve all been the sardines in the subway.’ except him, of course.
Ha! Google maps says it’s a 2 hour and 10 minute walk from my apartment to work. But I suppose that would be better than the poor folks who have to swim across the Hudson.
All this news is giving me anxiety. I was hyperventilating today. But I am glad i had my brown paper bag to breathe into from the market to help. Best 5 cents i spent all day!
That’s easy for the mayor to say he gets driven on tax payers dollars. Criminality running rampant badly
Without universal Healthcare in the USA, coronavirus puts all at risk!
But you know what? If the unpacked train has a delay, it turns into a packed train.
Longer the delay, more packed the train.
I take the 7 train. Packed almost all day.
Thanks for the suggestion, Mayor. You are always accurate and opportune.