On 8 June, “Phase 1” was launched to start reopening New York City.
The subway cars were soaked down with cleaning fluids and, as with other nations such as the U.K., riders must wear masks.
They let construction workers back on the job, but in the new ABnormal, first they had to line up to have their temperatures taken.
Throughout the City, many stores, from Saks Fifth Avenue to mom and pops, had their windows boarded-up, heavily guarded… or closed down.
As part of the mainstream media, which strongly had been advocating the extended lockdowns, the New York Times issued this headline on 9 June: “Masked and Relieved, New Yorkers Reclaim City.”
“Reclaim?” The throngs of tourists in this once-active city have vanished.
For the locals, they are now allowed to go to a dentist, take a pet to the vet, and even gather in groups of ten… if they obey the social distancing regulations.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said residents of the Big Apple should feel positive now that “Phase 1” of the reopening process has been declared.
On 8 June, as some 400,000 workers were allowed to get back to work, His Honor declared, “This is a triumph for all New Yorkers that we’ve gotten to this point.” (According to the State Comptroller’s office, before the pandemic, the city averaged 4.5 million people working each day.)
The mayor’s joyful appraisal was one-upped by Governor Cuomo, the chief architect of the four phase reopening guidelines, who declared, “You want to talk about a turnaround – this one, my friends, is going to go in the history books.”
TRENDPOST: Turnaround? Maybe COVID-19 is affecting the governor’s brain. On 21 April, he reported in a press briefing that New York’s unemployment website, in his words, “collapsed” due to a massive surge in claims after he shut down businesses and put a record number of New York residents out of work.
And one of the reasons for the high death rate in NYC, as we reported in the Trends Journal, was because Governor Cuomo ordered nursing homes to take in ill people and those with the virus, claiming hospitals needed the space, leading to a sharp rise in nursing home COVID-19 deaths.
In addition to throwing sick hospital patients out to make more room, which he did under the premise that they would swamp the system, Cuomo created emergency an hospital facility at the Javits Center and pushed President Trump to send in a Navy hospital ship.
Neither was needed. Over 90 percent of the hospital ship was empty, and the Javits Center, set up to handle the overflow, was barely used.
Yes, the governor was right when he stated, “This one, my friends, is going to go in the history books”… but not for the reasons he thinks.
TRENDPOST: As noted in previous Trends Journals, absent from media coverage and silent from their favorite experts and the politicians, is the discussion as to why, if this virus is dangerous to those not practicing social distance and strict hygiene requirements, the homeless aren’t dying by the hundreds of thousands?
In New York City, for example, it is estimated there are 80,000 homeless people and 180 shelter locations. At the end of May, 86 homeless people were believed to have died from those shelters; other homeless virus death statistics have not been made available.
Again, the numbers are insignificant considering the poor health conditions homeless are suffering from.
And in California, locked down for three months but now allowed to open up bit by bit, with a population of 40 million, the total COVID deaths are just 5,119 or 0.012 percent.
Yet, there are over 151,000 homeless in the state. If the virus were as deadly as the media liars and political power grabbers contend, COVID deaths would be in the high double digits in that segment alone.
