This is the one message that did not age well for the NYC Mayor’s Office who, back in February, told people there was nothing to worry about and that restaurants needed their business. Now NYC is the epicenter of outbreak with some of the most staggering numbers of sickness and people passing away from the pandemic.
It’s nothing to take lightly, that’s for sure, as the outbreak sweeps across the country, hitting city after city. Some of the lower population cities don’t have it as bad, but considering the urban geography of New York City and the amount of people living in such close quarters – it’s no wonder they became the epicenter of outbreak.
It was just a few days ago that Business Insider reported on NYC being the epicenter, stating that “New York City has reported more than 36,200 coronavirus cases and 790 deaths as of Monday — making it the center of the US outbreak” – but those numbers have already changed in just a few days.
The message sent by the NYC Mayor’s Office said this, exactly, “There are ZERO confirmed cases of coronavirus in New York City, and hundreds of Chinese restaurants that need your business! There is nothing to fear. Stop by any Chinatown for lunch or dinner!”
Now at the time, if there weren’t any confirmed cases, that doesn’t mean there weren’t people who were silent carriers. Some people had no symptoms, some people didn’t have symptoms until days later. This virus was one of those things where it literally just came out of nowhere (aka China) and took over before people had time to react to it. With so many people living in such close quarters in NYC, it makes perfect statistical sense on why they’re having so many cases of it.
But one must wonder if the message from the New York Mayor’s office sparked some activity and caused people to go out to places, helping their local businesses, and then go home sick and not even realize it.
It has to be a message they dearly regret after seeing the United States surpass the death numbers of 9/11 from a silent enemy we can’t seem to get a major grip on.
It’s one thing to take pride in your city and get people motivated to support local business, but it’s irresponsible to do it in the face of an outbreak.
Alas, there was at least one family who traveled abroad and returned very ill – but they, according to the message below, were denied testing.
How about these ppl in NY that came back from Vietnam & have Coronavirus symptoms but are being denied testing b/c they weren’t in China!
We must change the testing requirements. Covid19 is no longer limited to just China. pic.twitter.com/jTkOE8ME4y— Holy Moly (@FaithfulFortitu) February 14, 2020
This was on the exact same day as the NYC Mayor’s Tweet – but of course, no one was listening.