American Crisis

the new sound of the city. EMS workers who might handle four or five calls in a day were handling dozens. As the death rate spiked into the hundreds every day, many more than the city’s morgues and funeral homes could handle, we had to call in refrigerator trucks to store the overflow of bodies. The last time New Yorkers saw refrigerator trucks to store the dead was after 9/11, and this dwarfed that in numbers. 9/11 was horrific and traumatic and this was worse. It was just incredible to me. People’s loved ones went into the hospital and died, and they were never seen again. The closure that comes with the ritual of a funeral was no longer possible. We had to bring in funeral directors from out of state, waiving the licensing requirements. I had to sign an executive order that allowed for expedited cremations and electronic signatures for orders to dispose of a family member’s remains, and the crematoriums were allowed to operate twenty-four hours a day. For hundreds of COVID victims whose families couldn’t afford burial, or were simply unclaimed for any number of reasons, a mass grave on Hart Island, a public cemetery off the Bronx, was their final resting place. It was heartbreaking at a level I had never imagined.

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WE HAD LOST SIX hundred people overnight—a staggering amount. A reporter asked me at the briefing if people would get numb to the number of deaths. I was shocked by the question. For me it has been the opposite. The death toll was a constant weight on my chest and made it hard to breathe. An ironic coincidence given the primary symptoms of the invisible beast we were battling. Every day I had conversations with family members, hospital staff, and union representatives asking them to be strong and helpful. I understood my role and obligation, but I didn’t wish my role on my worst enemy.

Scientists were telling me that we might be approaching the apex of the curve, the point where it starts to flatten. But I didn’t even believe them anymore. It was all projections based on extrapolations and assumptions. How high up does the incline take us? Once we hit the apex, how long does it last? How fast is the decline on the other side? No one knew. For all the geniuses and experts, no one could tell me anything definitive.

Every day in my briefing I listed the number of hospitalizations and deaths. Every day it went up. Every day there was a bar on a chart in the PowerPoint presentation that represented the daily toll. And every day the bar went up a little bit higher than the day before. When you connected the tops of the bars, that was the curve: a sloped line going up. I would stare at the chart every day, and I would see a climb up a mountain. Each day was another step up. No one knew how high the mountain was and how many steps it would take to reach the summit. In fact, we knew that the summit had not even been determined; it would be determined by the actions we took right now. We would reach the summit when we created the summit. We would create the summit with the closedown and social distancing. We were defining the mountain as we climbed it.

I had to talk myself through it. Every mountain has a peak, right? Even Denali has a peak. Ours had to be somewhere. We just couldn’t give up. And when we reached the summit, we would plant the flag and start the descent. And the descent would be easier because the way down is always easier than the way up. We just had to make it to the top. Every day, even though it was a hard day, was one step closer. Maybe today is the day!

We were still having trouble getting people to understand how important social distancing was. I didn’t blame them; it was a new concept, frightening and difficult. The problem was, by the time they realized its importance, it might be too late. I had tried to communicate it every way possible. I increased the fine for violations to $1,000. Local governments were supposed to be enforcing the rule but were lax. I had spoken to them about stepping up enforcement compliance, but it was very unpopular on the local level. Some local officials stepped up, but most didn’t. The lack of compliance was worse among young people. The crowds that had turned out to watch the USNS Comfort arrive in New York Harbor were a portrait in irony.

There was nothing left for me to do but keep beating the drum, raise the fine, and hope that with cases going up, deaths going up, and hospitalizations going up, people would get the message.

And then there was a new problem. The number of unemployed people in New York State was skyrocketing as shuttered businesses laid off or furloughed workers. The federal government passed a new unemployment law to be administered by the states, including “Pandemic Unemployment Assistance” for gig economy workers, the self-employed, and those specifically laid off as a result of the pandemic. The new benefits required individuals to fill out multiple applications, and necessitated that we obtain certain specific information from enrollees and then certify continued unemployment status for every applicant every week. The New York State Department of Labor administers unemployment insurance and had become totally swamped with the number of people requesting assistance. As of this writing, New York State has now paid over $38 billion in unemployment benefits to more than 3.3 million New Yorkers—compared to just $2.1 billion paid in all of 2019. That’s more than sixteen years’ worth of benefits paid in just over four months.

The press was harping on the number of people who were understandably frustrated that they hadn’t yet gotten any unemployment aid. These are the same reporters who will be the first to criticize when