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Newark, New Jersey is dealing with a surge in coronavirus cases. Karen Yi, WNYC reporter covering New Jersey, reports on what's happening as the city shuts down.
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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and before the break I said we were going to talk about when you might be able to get a Corona Virus vaccine. Actually, that’s coming up as our next segment. Right now for all the coverage that New York City’s 3% COVID positivity rate is getting, it’s nothing compared to Newark with a 21% rate. That’s a three day average as of this weekend. Now Mayor Ras Baraka is asking residents to stay at home for 10 days beginning this Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving in an attempt to slow the spread. Here’s Mayor Baraka speaking in a Facebook live stream on Friday.
Mayor Ras Baraka: We want to be to do that for 10 days and we want only folks to come out for essential purposes.
Brian: Joining me now on the strictest new lockdown in our area and to take your newer calls is Karen Yi, WNYC New Jersey reporter, who’s been covering Newark for years. Welcome back to the show, Karen, hi.
Karen Yi: Hi, Brian, good to be here.
Brian: What does Mayor Baraka’s 10-day shutdown ask or require of people?
Karen: This is a strong ask. He’s basically asking people to shelter at home, to stay at home for 10 days. Only go out for emergencies or essential purposes. He’s also asking businesses to close down if possible. He’s asking people to stay at home, stay with their immediate families so that they can bring this curve down and slow down the spread of the virus that’s really been picking up in the last few weeks, but the details are a little bit murky as to what is considered essential versus not essential businesses.
Also, remember that Newark is the county seat for Essex County, the airport is there, Newark Penn Station is there. There’s a bunch of county buildings. The county itself, I talked to them this morning, they’re not going to be shutting down, but this is essentially a plea to all of the residents to hunker down for 10 days.
Brian: Is it all voluntary even the parts about the businesses? Maybe, people listening right saw Governor Cuomo over the weekend talking about how a mandatory shutdown of nonessential businesses might be coming to New York soon depending on the rise of the positivity rate there.
Karen: Right. Under Governor Murphy’s executive order he said explicitly that individual municipalities can’t go beyond what the governor has ordered and so the mayor can’t order this lockdown. He can’t put pen to paper and issue this executive order in his city. What he’s doing is strongly urging, strongly recommending, putting the pieces in place that he can control, so shutting down city hall, Newark Housing Authority is banning all visits.
They’re doing what they can within the legality of the governor’s executive order to slow the city down for 10 days. What that will look like and whether people would listen because it is voluntary they can’t go ahead and enforce this. We’ll have to see what that looks like, but what is allowed and what is enforceable is that as of 8:00 PM all nonessential businesses have to close down in the city. Governor Murphy actually allowed municipalities, he gave municipalities that flexibility to after 8:00 PM regulate nonessential business hours.
Brian: Listeners in Newark, are you going to voluntarily stay home for 10 days beginning on Wednesday? Did you have Thanksgiving plans that might have included leaving your home or having people over to your home that you’re now canceling, now that Mayor Baraka has raised the alarm of up to 20% plus COVID positivity rate in city? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280.
If you live in Newark or if you have a business in Newark are you going to voluntarily curtail anything as a result of this to try to take 10-day break from business as usual to really tamp down the rise in the spread of COVID in the city? 646-435-7280 for anybody who lives or works in Newark. 646-435-7280 or you can tweet @brianlehrer as we continue with Karen Yi, WNYC New Jersey reporter. What about Newark public schools are they expected to reopen after Thanksgiving break?
Karen: Initially, they were supposed to reopen to offer some in-person instruction in the second marking period, but then in October as we started to see cases creep up across the state the Newark, the superintendent of school board announced that they’re actually staying remote until at least January 25th.
Brian: That’s the public schools. Is it contentious in Newark what to do with the schools in the way that it is in New York?
Karen: I think they never really open for in-person. It’s not like there is a rollback after schools opened. It’s always been remote. It’s been remote for a while. I’m not hearing that as much and also you have to remember that Newark was really hard hit by this pandemic. I think people-- It was one of the hardest-hit cities. There was a lot of people dying. At this point there’s 697 is the last death tally that I have. I don’t know that people feel safe going into these older buildings. At this point not to the extent that I’ve heard in New York City.
Brian: Three zip codes within Newark were already facing restrictions prior to this 10-day lockdown or shelter in place announcement. Can you talk about those areas in Newark that were seeing those spikes? Who lives there? What has the lockdown experience-- I don’t know if lockdown is the right word? People use different words for the same things and they’re all kinds of gradations in whatever we want to call it, but to what degree have these neighborhoods been shut down? What’s the experience like and who’s it affecting?
Karen: The three neighborhoods that were under this curfew are the Ironbound that’s the eastward, parts of the northward, and parts of the westward. Even though the citywide positivity rate is 21%, in the Ironbound that positivity rate is 41%. That is extremely high and that’s actually come down from a high of 49%. That’s why these zip codes, in particular, were targeted.
In the Ironbound in particular you have a lot of Latinos, you have a lot of immigrant families, a lot of essential workers. In the northward also a lot of Latinos. In the westward-- This is a city that’s prominently Black and brown. It’s a city that-- There’s a lot of public housing, dense public housing. It has the most number of public housing units in the state. There’s a lot of multigenerational homes.
You have kids when they opened up sports again kids getting sick maybe in activities related to sports bringing it back home, getting their parents and their grandparents sick. People going to work, essential workers bringing it back home. This is how quickly this virus is spreading in this city. These three areas are under a 9:00 PM curfew on the weekday and a 10:00 PM curfew on a weekend.
The city police department actually shut down the roads this weekend into the eastward because there’s a lot of nightlife there in the ironbound restaurants since they open late. I don’t know if they’re going to do that moving forward. I know they did it this weekend. Only residents who could prove residency or had an address there could move in and out, but they basically shut down the streets.
Brian: I’ll take a phone call from Macy who lives in Brooklyn, but distributes meals in Newark. Macy, you’re on WNYC, hello.
Macy: Hi, thanks for having me. I work with-- I’m a contractor with World Central Kitchen. I’ve been working them since April to help feed people in need during the pandemic and we have been partnering with an organization in Newark, Pub Newark Working Kitchen, which was organized by Audible who has offices in Newark to feed people in the Newark communities. Generally, we’ve been feeding around 12,000 meals a week to Newark Housing Authority buildings and community organizations that are in Newark as well. These meals are all coming from local downtown Newark restaurants. We have about 26 different restaurants and rotate people on a weekly basis.
Of course, with these new restrictions that the mayor put in place a lot of the restaurants were concerned, "What does this mean? Can we still deliver the meals? How will this work?" Some of the recipients have said that they are no longer able to receive the meals. For Thanksgiving, in particular, this week I think the schedule has gotten a little bit out of sorts, but for the most part, everybody is still all system go. These meals are prepared under very strict guidelines, keeping COVID precautions in mind.
I see this as an essential business. It’s much safer for people to get meals prepared and delivered to them specifically for the purpose of keeping them at home as opposed to going out in the community to do more shopping and trying to source their own meals. I think that this is a very efficient way to get meals safely to people who might be in need.
Brian: Great, Macy, thank you for your call and thank you for your work. Karen, is that new to you?
Karen: Yes, I hadn't heard of this initiative, but that's great. I think there's so much need and, and growing need. In terms of restaurants, not being sure if they can provide these meals, I think there's so much confusion what this lockdown means. Like what you said, Brian, should we call it a lockdown? The mayor announced this last week. It's been hard to get clarification as to what is allowed and what isn't allowed, even though this is a strong recommendation, I think these are some of the issues that people are confused about. "What can we do? Or what are we recommended not to do essentially?"
Brian: Here is Patrick who owns a bike shop in downtown Newark. Patrick, you're on WNYC. Hello?
Patrick: Hi, Brian yes, I have a Newark community cycling center in the central ward in Newark and we're trying to make a decision on whether we should be shut down for this period or not. I know that bicycle shops were declared an essential business early
when things got bad before, so we were allowed to be open, but I'm just trying to make a decision on what's the right thing for the community?
Brian: Who would have guidance for him? Karen, I presume you don't want to tell him what to do, but who would have guidance for him? It's true that for people that didn't know, bicycle shops have been deemed essential partly because it's an alternative way for people to get around when they're not comfortable using mass transit right now and exercise is considered an essential thing as well, just for its own sake. In fact, Patrick, let me ask you a follow-up question everything I hear, it's hard to buy a bike right now because they're all sold out because there's such demand. Is that your experience?
Patrick: Yes, we had a real run on things for a while. We do have bikes for sale, but my biggest concern with this is trying to keep the delivery folks who use bicycles keep them working because they're doing a lot of work and we want to be there to service them, but we also don't want to contribute to the spread.
Brian: Patrick, again, thank you. It's so interesting here, Patrick owns a shop in downtown Newark, he's not sure what the best thing to do is during this 10-day period that Mayor Baraka has announced starting Wednesday and he's looking for guidance, which means he's not getting guidance from the authorities, Karen.
Karen: Right and I think that's one of the issues. It's been hard for even the media to get clarity on. Initially, it was, "Is this an order," and if it's an order, does it contradict the governor's orders? Then we were told, this is just a strong urge or a strong ask, a strong recommendation. The governor's office said this is in line with what the governor, what Murphy wants because it is an ask and so that was difficult to parse out.
Now I think, yes, exactly what Patrick is speaking to, do bike shops count? Do some of these meal services count? What is included and what isn't? Again, this isn't going to be enforced heavily. I don't think there's going to be fines issued so what people decide will be up to them, but I think it would really be helpful for a lot of people that are confused what qualifies and what doesn't. I think I would suggest to Patrick maybe reaching out to his central ward councilwoman and try calling the city and I can find out as well and let him know if that's something that qualifies, but I'm not sure either.
Brian: Patrick, I hope that's at least a little bit helpful. You keep coming back to Mayor Baraka and not being able to do everything he might want to do to get people to stay away from each other in Newark for a period of time because the governor won't let him. Do you know if those conversations have taken place? Doesn't Murphy have the authority, even if he'd rather have statewide standards to make exceptions for a city that wants to do something based on local conditions?
Karen: He does. In some cases, if you look at everything that Newark has issued in the last few weeks they were one of the first to say not essential businesses have to close at 8:00 PM. And then the governor said municipalities have that flexibility. Baraka then said, "We're going to limit indoor gatherings to 10 people," when at the time the statewide limit was 25.
Then you had Murphy roll back the indoor gathering restrictions to 10. I think there's probably conversations going back and forth. I've been told by both the city and the state that they are in lockstep that they're in sync. Newark is really on the front lines of this. They're seeing these cases skyrocket more so than other places.
I've been told that yes these conversations are happening, but you do see Baraka taking the lead here and then Murphy trying to loosen that and trying to apply it statewide, but he has said pretty explicitly, he doesn't want every place to just do what they want because then you have a patchwork of policies and what's stopping somebody from Newark, say driving to some other town and eating at the restaurants there or potentially being infected and taking the infection elsewhere? That's his concern on a broader basis, not having consistency across the board.
Brian: What happens if nonessential businesses like bars and restaurants and gyms and salons decide to stay open? Are they expected to receive fines from the city?
Karen: Under this lockdown? No, my understanding is it's not an enforcement issue, so they're not going to receive fines. They may receive warnings and be told, "Hey we're trying to keep this virus at bay, go home," but they should not be receiving fines or something. To my understanding that may change because again, this isn't an order.
This is just a strong ask from the city, but if non-essential businesses open past eight o'clock that's when you can be issued a fine or summons by code enforcement by the police department. The Newark police told me since these guidelines have gone in place they've issued, they said 322 warnings to businesses and 793 warnings to residents since October 28th. That's regarding the other restrictions, not the 10-day lockdown.
Brian: I noticed that in Hoboken the mayor there is now requiring restaurants, gyms, and salons to record contact information and time of arrival of customers. Are they doing that in Newark?
Karen: They are requiring restaurants to take everyone's temperature and they're also banning restaurants from taking reservations for parties larger than 10 people and then they have this rule that if code enforcement does an inspection and you're in violation, your first violation, you'll be forced to close for two days. Your second violation, I think it's closed for maybe 30 days. It's progressive. I don't know what Hoboken is doing, but I know Newark has pretty strict measures on restaurants including if a worker test positive and this was in their restrictions that was issued earlier this month,
Brian: By the way, we have a tweet from a listener who says, "It makes a really big difference on multiple levels to use terms like lockdown. Use, stay at home instead, and see the difference." I imagine she's referring to public acceptance of whatever the content of the order is. What word is Mayor Baraka using?
Karen: He has his daily Facebook briefing with residents and I think that's where he's really used the platform to spread his message. I think he's never used, that I have heard, the word order, but he has used the word shelter in place. He has used the word lockdown, he has used the word, "Only go out for essential purposes," but again, he said, "Stay at home," but he has not said order. So that has not come out of his mouth from what I've heard.
Brian: Here's another tweet that says, "The poor get slammed in every way, but the incidence of non-compliance-- I'm editing on the fly here, a long tweet, basically it says, "Sympathy for people in Newark and the conditions that lead to it having a high positivity rate, but the incidence of non-compliance with masks is high and you need to discuss it." Is that verified by your reporting?
Karen: The people not wearing masks? Yes, I think the mayor goes on and he's fighting a lot of disinformation, which we've seen not just in Newark, but in other places. People not wanting to wear masks outside, people not believing in masks, people not believing the science. A lot of his briefings actually are spent refuting all of this misinformation and really urging people to wear masks so that's something that can stop the spread of the virus. I think everyone acknowledges that people got lax over the summer when the city's positivity rate was hovering, a couple of percentage points like 6%, 7% positivity rate.
Even the mayor said, "I stopped wiping down things as much as I used to." So he's urging people to get back on track, get back to doing the things that they were doing in the first week of the pandemic, including wearing masks.
Brian Lehrer: Why is Newark uniquely high?
Karen: In terms of the cases, what I mentioned earlier, you have a lot of multi-generational homes, sports was allowed in New Jersey, you had kids playing sports, maybe doing some activities after sports, hanging out, potentially getting infected, bringing the virus home, spreading it to their parents, or their grandparents who they may live with. You have a lot of dense housing, a lot of public housing in the city, a lot of essential workers taking public transit. A lot of those factors, I think, combined really contributed to the positivity in the city.
I think it'll be interesting to see the contact tracing if there's particular incidents that led to the spike. We also know that in the Ironbound, that was one of the places where cases started to spike early. When I spoke to university hospital, they had pointed that out as a hotspot early on, when they started to see more cases of hospitalizations, and a lot of that has to do with the nightlife that exists there; bars opening late, people gathering inside, people gathering outside, maybe not wearing masks, so those potentially becoming super spreader events.
Brian: Karen, before you go, last Thursday, you came out with a story on Fort Dix, In New Jersey, a prison people may know it as an army base. My father served there. A prison which has the second-worst COVID outbreak in the federal prison system. What's the story there?
Karen: Right. You have almost 240 inmates who are sick with COVID. What I heard from a lot of people inside and their family members outside was that they were alarmed by the lack of medical help. I was described these sort of horrific scenes of prisoners banging on doors for hours to get help, getting Tylenol for some of the worst symptoms, not seeing a doctor or a nurse, and then being asked to lineup for temperature checks in a unit that they were quarantining, and where it was really cold, perhaps the heat wasn't working, and so you have guys who are sick in bed, lethargic, fatigued, maybe with a fever lining up waiting for an hour for somebody to walk down the line and take their temperatures.
There's just a concern about whether Fort Dix and the Bureau of Prisons has done enough to stop the spread of this virus. We're not really sure how these cases skyrocketed, there was a transfer of inmates from Ohio, from a prison that had an outbreak. There was also the resumption of visits, and there is no testing of staff at the moment. Staff is asked to get tested in the community. This number that we're seeing, it's 18 positive staff the last time I checked in 238 positive inmates that may be undercounting. Again, there's no universal testing. They've really just tested inmates in a few of the buildings. It's unclear whether this could be more widespread.
Brian Lehrer: On a little bit of good news and to make a segue to our next segment. Thanksgiving in Newark might be largely canceled this year, but there is hope for Christmas according to Governor Murphy. Let's take a listen to an announcement he made during a news conference last week.
Governor Murphy: Should this be approved, we would then expect that our first shipment of roughly 130,000 doses would arrive in state around Christmas time with more to follow.
Brian Lehrer: He's talking about Coronavirus vaccines, of course. You've reported on the Pfizer vaccine and how it'll come to New Jersey. By the end of the year, at least the first doses if it's approved, what's the current status?
Karen: Right. If it's approved, we'll get 130,000 doses by mid-December, another 130,000 doses by the end of the year. By January, state health officials say New Jersey will have with Pfizer and Moderna, if that's also approved, will have 460,000 doses. There's a three-phase rollout of who gets the vaccine first. So obviously healthcare workers are in tier one, vulnerable populations, people with underlying health conditions, people in nursing homes, and then the general population is at the end.
The state health commissioner has estimated if all goes as planned, general population could be getting the vaccine as early as April or May. These vaccines will be shipped directly to hospitals. Most have that ultra-cold storage that they can keep these vaccines in. It's interesting because both Pfizer and Moderna are two-dose vaccines and they're 21 days apart and 28 days apart. You'll have the first shipment of doses going out and then the second shipment I'm guessing for the second dose that's 20 days after that. Yes, some positive news for the holidays if all goes as planned with the US regulators.
Brian Lehrer: Karen Yi, WNYC New Jersey reporter. Thanks so much.
Karen: Thank you so much, Brian.
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