The Daily - One City’s Fight to Stop the Virus

Episode Date: March 19, 2020

New Rochelle, a suburb north of New York City, has one of the largest clusters of coronavirus infections in the U.S. We visited the community to find out how the containment measures were being implemented and how successful they have been. On today’s episode: Sarah Maslin Nir, a breaking news reporter at The New York Times.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York created a “containment zone” in New Rochelle last week, hoping to curb the spread of the virus in “the single most troubling area in the state.” Soon after, the National Guard arrived to help implement the measures.New York is among about 10 states that have set up drive-through testing centers, as state and local leaders try to figure out how to safely screen more people.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, a suburb north of New York City has become one of the largest clusters of the coronavirus in the U.S. My colleague, Sarah Maslin-Neer, went there. My colleague, Sarah Maslin-Meir, went there. It's Thursday, March 19. Sarah, tell us about the past few weeks in this town of New Rochelle, New York.

It began with a local man. His name is Larry Garbus. He's a lawyer. He's about neighbor to drive him to the hospital and spend several days there really spiraling. Then on March 2nd, they find out what was wrong with Larry Garbus, and it was coronavirus. Cases of coronavirus are growing nationwide, and New York State is no exception. He's the first person in this suburb that is diagnosed.

Investigators scrambling to retrace the patient's movements from the Bronxville Hospital, where he was first treated. And disease investigators then have to trace his movements. The week before he knew he was contagious, the married father of four traveled around the New York City area. He also attended temple services back in Westchester. And found out that he had attended religious services, just as anyone would, a wedding, a bar mitzvah, about a week before. Synagogue Young Israel of New Rochelle ordered to close, and hundreds of people who attended services there have been told to quarantine themselves at home. And the Westchester County Health Department ordered 100 families, congregants of that synagogue,

to self-quarantine. So I'm sitting in our offices at Times Square when we hear about this diagnosis. And I immediately get in my car and head up to New Rochelle because this is going to have huge ripple effects in his town. We know it. And when I arrived, people didn't even know it had happened. There was a man pushing at the door of Young Israel, Mr. Garbouz's synagogue, trying to get in for evening prayers,

not understanding why it was locked. There were restaurants where people should be turning up for evening hours, not understanding why their customers were calling in takeout instead. This was a town where the news that they were part of this global pandemic was just settling in. There's nothing we can do about it. I think it's another flu that's going to go away, hopefully. People were barely understanding that this had happened to them.

And I'm still going to go out. I'm going to go to CVS, the post office, the bank, because I'm going to wash my hands. I'm going to try never to ever touch my face. I'm getting rid of my life. Yeah. Good. So to the degree that something is happening here in New Rochelle, it's dawning on people very slowly.

I think it's dawning on America very slowly. And New Rochelle was a reflection of the lack of seriousness with which the country was taking this threat. But from that quiet first evening in New Rochelle, things rapidly began to change. Good afternoon. New Rochelle is a particular problem. And on March 10th, something unprecedented happens. What we are going to do is focus on an area, concentric circle around this site. A one-mile radius containment zone is designated in New Rochelle,

surrounding the neighborhood of this first patient. Facilities within that area, schools within that area would be closed for two weeks. We'll go in, we'll clean the schools and assess the situation. This can't be a political decision. This is a public health decision. That containment zone is the red-hot center of New York's coronavirus outbreak. We're also going to use the National Guard

in the containment area. And then in comes the National Guard. It is a dramatic action, but it is the largest cluster in the country. And this is literally a matter of life and death. That's not an overly rhetorical statement. You have people holed up in their homes, people needing testing, needing health care, needing the basic necessities of life, and affected by this virus that dramatically curtails their movements.

I wanted to understand how is the government keeping us safe? How are the health care workers carrying out testing? And how are the people of New Rochelle coping? and how are the people of New Rochelle coping? I'm standing on Lincoln Avenue, which is just outside the containment zone in New Rochelle, where a huge truck full of hundreds of thousands of pounds of food has just arrived. About six uniformed members of the National Guard are standing outside this truck as a pallet is unloaded.

So Sarah, why exactly is the National Guard there? What is their official mission? When I think of the National Guard being dispatched, it's usually after a natural disaster, and they are literally there to kind of pick up the pieces. Yeah, these men and women had been to floods, they'd been to earthquakes, they'd been to hurricane zones. This is the first ever time they were called to an epidemic event. So we basically responded to all natural disasters in New York State. And they were called here for two main purposes, which is to deliver meals to people bound in their homes by quarantine and to clean.

So I've just walked into the Jewish Community Center on Wilmot Road in Scarsdale. Inside, 60 members of the National Guard are doing a deep clean. Inside, 60 members of the National Guard are doing a deep clean. I watched them clean at a community center, and the meticulousness was really incredible. I'm currently going to inform the process of sanitizing the equipment. First, you have to take the equipment and put it into the solution of water and bleach. I walk into a classroom for children and there are these men and women squeezed in their military gear

into teeny tiny plastic seats for toddlers pouring over piles of building blocks and Legos and scrubbing each block by hand. The National Guard is scrubbing children's toys? Yeah, it was an uncanny sight. They did this kind of thing throughout the containment zone, cleaning synagogues, city facilities, community centers, scrubbing ceilings, floors, chairs, anything that a sick person may have touched.

You know, Sarah, as you're describing this, the National Guard is on the ground. Local officials are still theoretically in charge, right? Like the people who run the city, probably even the county. So is it clear to you who is in charge and is this all coordinated? In the early moments of New Rochelle coming to terms with this new reality, it was a lot of moving pieces. It was a city in turmoil with no real leadership structure in place at that moment. and I drive down to downtown New Rochelle to the headquarters of the Westchester County Health Department and discover that something had been building here all along. I'm standing inside the Incident Response Center in New Rochelle and there's a group of about 30 nurses on folding chairs

getting a briefing about their deployment to test people who are quarantined at home. Make sure, go to the bathroom, wash your hands properly before you do anything, take breaks, you don't have to rush around, we want to make sure that you are taking care of each other. And there I come upon a huge, bustling incident command center. They're going out in groups of three in protective gear with swab kits.

The Department of Homeland Security is there. The room is filled with nurses. There is an assembly line of test gear and test kits and what's called PPE, personal protective equipment, that people are filing around the room, equipping themselves to get ready to deploy to the houses of sick people to test them for coronavirus. And they're all asking lots of very understandable questions. Is there going to be an influx of testing or is it just like we're only doing the North Shire? How do we make sure these people feel safe? How do we make sure that we're safe as we go out under the front lines? So at this point in the United States, only 25,000 people had been tested for coronavirus.

And this command center is to send that number way up. So people will call in to their doctors, tell their symptoms. They'll get put on a list. And every so often, these groups of nurses were getting an address, information. They'd put on head-to-toe protective gear and head out to sample and test those people. And there are big signs that say, we've got this. The signs actually say, we've got this. Handwritten signs all over the room.

And what are you thinking when you see this? I think I finally found the coordinated response that this situation seems to call for. This is a room full of all the layers of government from the state to different agencies to health care workers in their scrubs coordinating to take on this crisis head on. to take on this crisis head on. And after nearly a week of frightened townspeople and scared kids, this is exactly what you wanted to see. It was a relief.

We'll be right back. So, Sarah, what happens next? What else can you tell us about this containment plan? Think of it this way. We have 173 cases in the entire state, right? We have 108 in New Rochelle. At this point, things are starting to get up and running in New Rochelle. We're about two weeks out from the first diagnosis,

and the National Guard is here. There's the Incident Command Center. And that command center is sending people out to do in-home testing. But General Jake, this is a microcosm of what we're going to be looking at. The numbers are going to go up consistently, because our testing is way behind the reality of what the situation is. But still, it's not enough. The numbers of people tested at this point are only in the hundreds.

China was doing 10,000 tests per day. This country, in total, we've done about 5,000 tests. So we really have to get that testing capacity up if we're going to make a difference. New York State recognizes even what they're doing there in New Rochelle, it's not enough. We have to ramp up testing. And so how do they actually do that? Actually, they saw what was happening in South Korea, where they've created these highly effective drive-through testing centers, managing to churn out 275,000 tests since diagnosis. And that happened actually around the same time that our country had its first case. So New York State decides we need these centers.

And so I went to see this myself. So I'm recording this now standing outside the mobile drive-through testing center in a public park. When you get to this beautiful island park, there's seagulls wheeling overhead. There's the Long Island sound glinting. You arrive at what looks like three beautiful wedding tents. They're tents that could be for any garden party. And you only realize what this is because of the cop who stops you at the drawbridge to this island with his megaphone blaring. Thank you for helping us. Sure.

My guide was a gentleman by the name of Chuck Hamilton. He was in charge of operations at that site. There is three tents with six lanes that are being directed by our National Guard personnel right now. And as we pulled up, you head down a meandering lane lined with orange cones and members of the National Guard and other police forces. They'll advise us to keep our windows closed at this particular point. They demanded I put my ID on the windshield.

Windows closed up. Sorry? Put your IDs up on the desk. Okay, all identification must now be put on the desk. They don't want you to open your window, hand them anything. So groups of people in Tyvek aprons, those respirator masks, lean over, peer through your windshield, tap your name and info into a tablet, and make sure you're confirmed for your appointment at the drive-thru testing center. And there are two silver dressed with... These people are in full Tyvek hooded suits.

Next, you're waved from this first zone where they check you in, called a cold zone, because there isn't a risk of contamination there, to the hot zone. Yes, these are all registered nurses, paramedics or EMTs. She's indicating when you keep the window closed. In the hot zone, I was approached by two nurses in full what looked to me like hazmat suits, eye shields in fact sick, which was tip my head back, thread a swab into my nostril, and then another into the back of my throat with a tongue depressor, put those swabs in vials, and send those off to the lab. Lean forward and tilt your head back a little bit backwards. Take a deep breath and right foot the swab in. And that's it. The other swab is the back of the throat. I rolled up my window tightly and then moved on to the next station where I was processed and a woman held up a

little handwritten sign that said, feel better. I imagine that everybody else going through that line needed that sign real bad. So you're in total protective gear, you know, doing this work, you're on the front of the front of the front line. And how did you feel? I spoke to one nurse who was in that hazmat suit in the hot zone. And she appeared to me to be the age demographic that is at risk from coronavirus, which is 50 plus. And yet she felt this was the moment to step up. I feel compelled to help. which is 50 plus. And yet she felt this was the moment to step up. I feel compelled to help.

Compelled to help. And, you know, we have to be careful. One mistake could be a big problem. You know, obviously, we can become contaminated. But this is the time. This is why we became this. This is the time to help. If we don't do this, what am I doing?

What's your name? My name is Lisa Baez Alessandro. Can you spell the last name? B-A-E-Z and then hyphen, yeah, hyphen, and then Alessandro. So has this testing site been effective? Is it making a difference in containing and combating the virus? It is making a difference in figuring out who has this illness. And a tremendous difference. They have hustled since it opened on Friday, 2,849 people through that drive-through. As of our conversation, Michael, this is charging

ahead and vastly increasing New York's capacity to test these people. This is how we're going to get a handle on this disease, to understand how it spreads, who's affected by it, to model it forward to know what we're up against. Right. You really can't stop it until you can measure it. Exactly. And you can't protect people unless you know who's got it. So Sarah, at this point, the system that you have described to handle this acute crisis in New Rochelle is a containment zone, the National Guard to keep it contained, but more importantly, keep people safe, clean, fed.

And now there's this mobile testing center nearby trying to figure out just how widely the virus has spread. Overall, is this starting to feel like a model for other places? More than just feel like a model, it is the model for New York State's response. In the coming week and weeks, more of exactly what's happening in New Rochelle is going to be set up all over the state. Nassau County, Jones Beach, which isn't too far, just got its first mobile testing center modeled off this. It's coming to Staten Island in New York City, to Rockland County, another place not far away. I met a man while I was out there in New Rochelle. We were standing outside a classroom where National Guard were scrubbing Legos. And he said to me, you know, they talk about reinventing the wheel,

but this is inventing the wheel. And when we look back at how to handle these things in the future, people are going to look back and say, how did they do it in New Rochelle? And he might be right. The whole country might end up looking at this as a model because the whole country might be in New Rochelle's position soon. And this may be just what they have to go on. And do you get the sense that what's happening in New Rochelle, this invention of the wheel when it comes to how to deal with a pandemic in the United States, do you get the sense that it's working and that this is basically all on the right track? It's hard to know. Every day there are new cases. I don't think we'll know for a while what's working. But it's deeply comforting when you look out across the nation and the world

and see this patchwork of responses that barely hang together to know that here in this state, in this city, in New Rochelle, a Herculean effort is being made to get this thing right and keep people safe. I'm walking down North Avenue in New Rochelle. It's the same block where the synagogue at the heart of this outbreak, Young Israel of New Rochelle, sits closed at the other end of the street. You know, Sarah, we have been talking about how this town has been totally transformed in what's really just a matter of days, a couple weeks.

A lot of outsiders coming in, National Guard, volunteers parachuting in to help. But what about the community itself, the people who are there in the city, in this containment zone? How are they handling this? Michael, this is a hard time to be anyone in or out of the zone. How are they handling this? Michael, this is a hard time to be anyone in or out of the zone. And we are all looking for a dose of human goodness. And we were just talking outside. It's a little intimidating, a little scary. How do you feel about it? Sad. Why? Because people's dying.

But, you know, I want you to know that that's just a very few older people. I don't want you to feel scared. I'm not scared. You're not. If you go to New Rochelle and you see people asked unimaginable things, asked to cut themselves off from everyone they love to protect everyone else, you see people willingly doing it. How are you holding up?

We've been doing a lot of deliveries, as you can see. There's no one in the restaurant right now, except you and I and some staff. People, as much as they've been put upon and wish it were otherwise, they are resolute and resilient and they're accepting this because they know it's for a greater purpose. We just want to make sure that the stress level and the anguish that the public might be feeling, that they feel that everything that can be done is being done for their health. Are you helping out too? Yeah.

Are you going to pack any bags or give any bags to any of the families? Mm-hmm. Are you going to pack any bags or give any bags to any of the families? From the delivery people who've worked out systems to leave bags of food on a staircase and run away with a wave to the sick people indoors waiting for that meal. What we've been doing, as I've coined the phrase, the drop and dash. So you literally pull up to the house, you drop the bag off, and you run like the wind. And that's it. Everybody gets it. Everybody just wants everyone else to get better. Like someone cares about them. Yes, they're quarantined. It's a

terrible thing. And when I pick up the phone and I see a name that I recognize, I speak to them. I say, how are you holding up? And they ask me the same thing, how are you holding up? And we both crack a joke and we laugh and that's it. You know, you got to keep a sense of humor with this whole thing. And it's terrible for everyone. It really, my heart is aching for them and they feel the same way about me. This whole thing

is just bringing everyone together. Hopefully not literally because that's how Corona spreads. You gotta laugh, huh? Yeah, you gotta laugh. Only way to get through it. 100%. Are you going to go out on another delivery now? I don't have anything at the moment.

We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Wednesday, the United States and Canada said they would close their shared border to all but essential travel, becoming the latest countries to restrict border crossings to slow the spread of the pandemic. In both our countries, we're encouraging people to stay home. We're telling our citizens not to visit their neighbors if they don't absolutely have to. Well, this collaborative and reciprocal measure is an extension of that prudent approach.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the Senate approved a relief package already passed by the House that provides sick leave, unemployment benefits, free coronavirus testing, and food and medical aid to Americans affected by the pandemic. President Trump quickly signed the legislation into law, the first of several congressional bills related to the coronavirus that he is expected to support. The Congress has an enormous role to play in responding to this challenge,

and we are determined to do that duty. In a speech from the Senate floor, Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called for a bipartisan approach to the crisis. This is not a challenge anyone wanted for our nation, but it is a challenge we will overcome. Someday, hopefully soon, our nation will have this virus on its heels. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

Okay, so we're not going to high-five. We're going to elbow bump. Show me how to elbow bump. Like this. Well, you have to touch another person's elbow. Is that weird? Yeah. Because you have to cough in your elbow.

Oh, so you don't even think elbow bump's a good idea. So how should we stay safe and greet each other during this time? Well, me and my friends in Abilene Middle School, we dabbed with our feet.. Alright, can we do it? I'm going to put my foot out, and then you put yours out, and then? Yes. Smack. Alright, well you've got a great attitude, man.