The city that never sleeps will be forced to shutdown its bars and restaurants, including those in New York City’s iconic Times Square, in a bid to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Photos of one of the most famous tourist attractions in the Big Apple show a relatively quiet scene with only a handful of people walking under Times Square’s bright lights on Monday.
New Yorkers, like many Americans across the country, have been told to hunker down in their homes and avoid large crowds and mass gatherings as much as possible as the number of confirmed cases in the US surged passed 4,000 with more than 70 deaths.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said late Sunday that New York City’s normally hectic bars and restaurants would be restricted to take-out and delivery only beginning at 8pm Monday night.
The city that never sleeps will be forced to shutdown its bars and restaurants, including those in New York City’s iconic Times Square, in a bid to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus
The mayor said New York will close its bars and restaurants for ‘as long as necessary’ along with casinos, gyms and movie theaters as part of an effort with neighboring states Connecticut and New Jersey to stop the spread of coronavirus.
New Jersey has also launched a statewide ‘curfew’ between the hours of 8pm and 5am for all ‘non essential travel’ but it is unclear what that is or what will happen to anyone who does not follow the rules.
The state’s governor, Phil Murphy, has not confirmed whether or not people will be able to go to work between those hours or how he plans to enforce it, but is only saying that he ‘strongly discourages’ anyone from leaving home between those hours.
New York Gov Andrew Cuomo announced the shutdown in a tweet on Monday morning after urging Trump to shut down the country to fight coronavirus and said the current ‘patchwork quilt’ system of some states being more vigilant than others is not working.
The order applies to New York City too. The shut-down had been planned for Tuesday morning at 9am.
But Cuomo sped it up on Monday, saying the tri-state decided to take matters into their own hands after a lack of action from the White House.
He earlier pleaded with President Donald Trump to order shut downs across the country, saying the ‘patchwork quilt’ approach of seeing some states taking more vigilant action than others ‘is not working’.
There are more than 4,000 cases of coronavirus in the US and 74 people have died.
After Cuomo’s announcement, shift workers in bars and restaurants panicked and started asking how they would be able to pay their rent.
In Maryland, the city-wide shutdown began at 5pm on Monday. It applies to restaurants, bars, gyms and movie theaters.
Restaurants across Manhattan were shuttered on Monday as people chose to close their doors to stop the spread of coronavirus
A group of people stand outside the Moon Star Grill in The Bronx which closed as a precaution on Monday due to coronavirus
In the United States, there are more than 4,200 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 74 deaths
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has advised officials across the United States to crack down on large gatherings of more than 50 people for at least eight weeks as the governors of California, Illinois and Ohio close all of the bars in their states
NEW JERSEY GOV: THIS IS NOT BUSINESS AS USUAL – THIS IS REAL
Gov. Phil Murphy announced he is ‘strongly discouraging’ anyone from leaving their homes between 8pm and 5am for all ‘non-essential travel’ but he didn’t say what that was or what the punishment would be
NJ Gov. Phil Murphy is is telling residents not to leave their homes between 8pm and 5am as part of a ‘curfew’ to battle coronavirus.
It is unclear how he plans to enforce it – he has not said whether or not he will arrest people or stop and ask them why they are out if they do venture outdoors in those hours.
Murpy is ‘strongly discouraging’ against all non-essential travel between those hours.
He is however yet to define what non-essential travel is.
In other cases, like in Hoboken which imposed a 10pm curfew on Sunday, people have been allowed to go to work and to stock up on food or go to hospitals.
Everything else is banned.
Gov. Murphy said he wanted to take action after watching videos of people ignoring the advice to social distance to go to bars and restaurants over the week.
‘I saw too many videos last night of packed bars, people passing bottles drinking from the same bottle, literally globbed on top of each other.
‘In short of shutting the entire state down, clipping establishments by a number of hours each night in particular we believe will have a meaningful, positive outcome in terms of social distancing,’ he said.
In an impassioned press conference on Monday afternoon, he warned people to take the crisis seriously.
‘This is not fake news. This is real. If we don’t have this right – it’s on me.
‘This is real. Stop believing folks who believe it isn’t real,’ he said.
There has been no firm answer yet on how to alleviate the financial burden of the crisis on individuals.
White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow told DailyMail.com Monday said the administration ‘might’ get behind new proposals to give cash to American households in the neighborhood of $1,000 each per month.
In New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, all bars and restaurants will be forced to switch to take-out and delivery orders only from 8pm on Monday night.
In New York, Cuomo will relax liquor laws to allow people to order alcohol from their local bars and restaurants.
Movie theaters, theaters, gyms and casinos will close and will remain closed indefinitely.
He said the rules would last for ‘as long as necessary’ to cope with the crisis.
In Hoboken, New Jersey, a 10pm curfew is in place but it remains unclear how it is being enforced and what happens to anyone who breaks it.
Earlier, in an interview on Good Morning America on Monday, Gov. Cuomo said it made no sense for him to take harsh action in New York but have neighboring states like New Jersey and Connecticut not, because people would simply migrate there to keep living their lives and potentially spread the virus.
‘This government has to get more engaged.
‘There’s been no country that hasn’t handled this on a federalized level.
‘This patchwork quilt of policies doesn’t work. It makes no sense for me to do something in New York and New Jersey to do something else.
‘I close the bars? They go to jersey. You need the specific rules.
‘Every state cannot come up with its own rules, you’ll just have people going from state to state.
‘You’ll go to New Jersey, Connecticut, wherever you can be served.
‘That’s the last thing we want.
‘Set the national standards and let’s live with them,’ he said.
The joint effort came hours later.
Despite President Trump’s insistence that the pandemic was under ‘tremendous control’ over the weekend, health care experts are bracing for a tidal wave of patients.
There is grave concern over how the nation’s hospital system will cope with the onslaught of patients who will soon need care.
Over the weekend, experts predicted as many as 10 million people will need to be hospitalized because of the virus, but there are not even one million hospital beds in the country.
New York City is all but shut down. Broadway has been closed since Friday, bars and restaurants will close on Tuesday morning
Cuomo has repeatedly requested the army corps of engineers to come to New York and start fitting out available buildings as hospitals, saying the ‘wave’ of the virus will ‘break’ on New York’s hospital system tomorrow if it they do not.
‘We have been behind this disease from day one.
‘We saw it develop in China, we weren’t ready and we’ve been playing catch up ever since.
‘You need to get ahead of this. It’s about the next war.
‘The next war is going to be overwhelming our hospital systems.’
Cuomo has already pleaded with the federal government to mobilize the army to fit out buildings in New York to turn them into temporary hospitals.
There are more than 950 cases in New York State, almost half of them are in New York City.
Cuomo revealed that there are only 50,000 hospital beds in the entire state and only 3,000 of them are in intensive care units.
‘The only hope we have at this late date is retrofit existing facilities.
‘Get some of the people from the hospitals into those new medical facilities and back fill the beds with coronavirus. States can’t build – it’s the army corp of engineers.
‘Let them come in today. Today. Time is short,’ he warned.
Other cities have implemented their own shutdowns but the federal government is yet to take a position on it.
Trump told Americans to ‘settle down’ on Sunday and warned them to stop stockpiling supplies, saying food stores would remain open no matter what happened.
However he is being widely criticized for his approach to the pandemic, which many say has been too slow from the beginning.
On Monday morning, the Dow opened down more than 2,200 points.
The S&P 500 futures index fell by eight percent at the opening bell, triggering a circuit breaker which halted trading for 15 minutes.
When the market reopened, it fell further and flirted towards a second circuit breaker, by dropping by as much as 11.5 percent.
It recovered and held throughout the rest of the morning.
Now, there are fears over how the country’s healthcare system is going to react to the surge in patients that will flood through hospitals in the next weeks and months.
Two emergency room doctors have become the latest are in the hospital in critical condition after contracting coronavirus.
An almost deserted subway station in Brooklyn, New York, on Monday morning as millions of New Yorkers stayed home
New York State has the highest number of cases in the country with more than 950. Above, a drive-thru testing facility in New Rochelle
One is a 70-year-old who has respiratory problems but the other is in their 40s and had no underlying health concerns.
Dr. James Pruden from Paterson, New Jersey, is in isolation after contracting the virus.
He was hospitalized 10 days ago with respiratory problems and has since agreed to be named and pictured in the hope that it will urge others who came into contact with him to take the necessary precautions.
It is unclear whether Dr.Pruden contracted the virus by treating patients, or if he was exposed outside the hospital.
‘He recognizes by sharing his name and condition it may encourage others to come forward and get tested.
‘The point we want to make is we are all at risk of this,’ St. Joseph’s Health President Kevin Slavin said last week.
The other doctor has not been named.
He works at EvergreenHealth Medical Center in Kirkland, Washington, where there have been 40 deaths.
Dr Liam Yore, the immediate past president of the Washington Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, told The Seattle Times the doctor was in his 40s.
Yore told the newspaper the doctor had used personal protective equipment and that it was not known whether the physician contracted COVID-19 in the community or at work.