Here’s what you need to know:
- 15 children are hospitalized with a mysterious illness that may be linked to the virus.
- The mayor said Trump was “stabbing his hometown in the back.”
- The nightly subway shutdown starts tonight.
- The morgue worker who buys a daffodil for each body bag.
- As deaths fall, Governor Cuomo gives criteria for reopening.
15 children are hospitalized with a mysterious illness that may be linked to the virus.
Fifteen children, many of whom had the coronavirus, have recently been hospitalized in New York City with a mysterious syndrome that doctors do not yet fully understand but that has also been reported in several European countries, health officials announced on Monday night.
Many of the children, ages 2 to 15, have shown symptoms associated with toxic shock or Kawasaki disease, a rare illness in children that involves inflammation of the blood vessels, including coronary arteries, the city’s health department said.
None of the New York City patients with the syndrome have died, according to a bulletin from the health department, which describes the illness as a “multisystem inflammatory syndrome potentially associated with Covid-19.”
The syndrome has received growing attention in recent weeks as similar cases have begun appearing in European countries hit hard by the coronavirus, including the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Spain.
New York City’s health commissioner, Oxiris Barbot, said in a statement: “Even though the relationship of this syndrome to Covid-19 is not yet defined, and not all of these cases have tested positive for Covid-19 by either DNA test or serology, the clinical nature of this virus is such that we are asking all providers to contact us immediately if they see patients who meet the criteria we’ve outlined.”
She urged parents to contact a doctor immediately “if your child has symptoms like fever, rash, abdominal pain or vomiting.”
The mayor said Trump was “stabbing his hometown in the back.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio accused President Trump on Tuesday of “stabbing his hometown in the back” by saying that states hit hard by the virus and run by Democrats should not count on what the president called “bailouts” from the federal government.
In an interview with The New York Post published Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump said that it would be “not fair to the Republicans” to give large infusions of aid to states with Democratic governors “that have been mismanaged over a long period of time.”
“You look at Illinois, you look at New York, look at California, you know, those three, there’s tremendous debt there, and many others,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump made a distinction between what he termed a bailout and “reimbursement for the plague,” ambiguous words that may leave open the door to federal assistance.
But Mr. de Blasio jumped on the president’s suggestion that states run by Democrats were less deserving of aid.
“Who cares who runs the states?” the mayor said, his voice rising. “The people need help.”
The mayor held up a letter signed by 111 Texas mayors sent last month to that state’s governor asking for expanded access to federal coronavirus aide. And he pointed to a $25 billion aid packages given to airlines during the crisis as hypocrisy on the president’s part..
He added that Mr. Trump, who grew up in Queens, had in a phone call personally expressed admiration to health care workers at Elmhurst Hospital, which has been struggling under a deluge of critically ill patients.
Mr. Trump’s comments and Mr. de Blasio’s rejoinders were the latest installment in an ongoing verbal battle between national Republican leaders, including the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and state and local Democratic officials over the question of federal aid.
Even as he railed against the president, Mr. de Blasio also announced Tuesday that with the help of federal health authorities, the city would begin offering antibody testing to health care workers and first responders, with a goal of testing 140,000 people.
The tests will be available at hospitals, fire houses, police station houses and jails.
“Any first responder or health care worker who wants to take advantage of it, it will be made available for free,” the mayor said.
The nightly subway shutdown starts tonight.
At 1 a.m. on Wednesday, the New York City subway will do something it has not done on a regular basis in at least 50 years.
It will stop.
Starting tonight, the city’s subway system will close from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. so that trains can be disinfected —- and the homeless people who have been taking shelter there can be rousted and, the authorities say, persuaded into shelters and checked for coronavirus symptoms.
The closing was ordered last week by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo as concerns grew that the subways had become unsanitary rolling homeless camps and the virus has taken a devastating toll on transit workers.
There have not been many overnight commuters lately in any case. Ridership on the subway is down more than 90 percent, with orders having been issued by the governor in March for people not to use mass transit unless it is absolutely necessary.
Only about 11,000 people per night have been using the subway from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. in recent weeks.
The subway is intended strictly as a way for essential workers to get to and from their jobs.
To serve them, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is increasing overnight bus service, running 300 extra buses along 61 different routes, according to NY1.
For workers whose commutes are not well served by buses, the transit agency is rolling out an “essential connector” program offering riders who can prove their travel is essential one free trip on a for-hire vehicle each night; it will also provide free rides on buses and in dollar vans.
The morgue worker who buys a daffodil for each body bag.
A few days a week, a woman arrives at the Metropolitan Plant and Flower Exchange — a squat, lime-green bunker along Route 17 North in Paramus, N.J. They know her there by her hospital scrubs.
She picks up her standing order: yellow daffodils. If there aren’t any daffodils, she’ll take carnations — yellow, please. That’s the most important part — bright yellow.
She brings the flowers with her to work at Hackensack University Medical Center. They aren’t for her office. They’re not for co-workers or patients. She carries them out back and walks into a parking garage.
Her name is Tanisha Brunson-Malone, 41, a forensic technician at the hospital’s morgue. She performs autopsies and oversees funeral home pickups of patients who have died.
Up two short flights of stairs to a closed-off floor. Where there would normally be parked cars, there are now three long trailers, with loud motors powering their refrigerators.
Inside each trailer are bodies in body bags, stacked on shelves three high, coronavirus victims awaiting pickup.
Ms. Brunson-Malone enters each trailer and walks the aisle between the rows, pausing at each new body bag. There, she carefully places a flower on top.
“One or two, it depends on how many flowers I have,” she said. “Sometimes I run out. I’ll go after work to go pick up more flowers. I know in the morning I’ll need more.”
As deaths fall, Governor Cuomo gives criteria for reopening.
Governor Cuomo provided new details on Monday about the process New York plans to follow for reopening as the coronavirus continues to decline in the state.
Mr. Cuomo listed seven requirements each of the state’s 10 regions must meet before restrictions meant to slow the virus’s spread could be eased in those areas.
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A 14-day decline in hospitalizations, or fewer than 15 a day.
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A 14-day decline in virus-related hospital deaths, or fewer than five a day.
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A steady rate of new hospitalizations below 2 per 100,000 residents a day.
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A hospital-bed vacancy rate of at least 30 percent.
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An availability rate for intensive care unit beds of at least 30 percent.
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At least 30 virus tests per 1,000 residents conducted a month.
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At least 30 working contact tracers per 100,000 residents.
Some parts of New York will probably meet the thresholds much sooner than others, the governor said. New York City is likely to reopen last.
“If upstate has to wait for downstate to be ready,” Mr. Cuomo said, “they’re going to be waiting for a long time.”
N.J. schools will stay closed until the end of the academic year.
All public and private schools in New Jersey will remain closed for the rest of the academic year, Gov. Philip D. Murphy said on Twitter on Monday, a week after saying there was “a chance” that they would reopen.
“I had hoped that we could get back to a sense of normal by allowing our children to get back to the schools they love and to be with their friends and classmates,” the governor said at his daily briefing after making the announcement. “But the reality is that we cannot safely reopen our schools.”
Students will continue online-only instruction through the end of the school year, Mr. Murphy said.
“Guided by safety and science, this is the best course of action,” he said on Twitter.
Mr. Murphy’s decision came after New York and Pennsylvania took similar steps. He had repeatedly indicated a preference for schools to reopen, a position shared by President Trump but not by most of his fellow governors.
The announcement about schools staying closed came on a day that New Jersey announced 45 new virus-related deaths for a total of 7,910 fatalities. Because of a weekend failure of the state’s computer system, both numbers are below the true figures, officials said.
“We are certain that these numbers are underreported,” the health commissioner, Judith M. Persichilli said.
Are you a health care worker in the New York area? Tell us what you’re seeing.
As The New York Times follows the spread of the coronavirus across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, we need your help. We want to talk to doctors, nurses, lab technicians, respiratory therapists, emergency services workers, nursing home managers — anyone who can share what’s happening in the region’s hospitals and other health care centers.
A reporter or editor may contact you. Your information will not be published without your consent.
Reporting was contributed by Jonah Engel Bromwich, Joseph Goldstein, Jesse McKinley, Andy Newman, Elian Peltier, Sarah Nir, Matt Stevens, Tracey Tully and Michael Wilson.
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