Preparing For NYC's Second Wave

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Brian: Brian Lehrer, WNYC. We were just talking about Sunset Park, Brooklyn as an exception to the low rates of COVID in New York right now. We've also been hearing about New York's so-called second wave since practically the start of the coronavirus crisis here in the spring. Health officials urge New Yorkers to flatten the curve by summer in order to prepare hospitals for the colder months and another surge in cases and demand on the hospital system. Now cases in New York are generally very low and staying low in most parts of New York for longer than many health experts would have predicted. The average infection rate in the state has been less than 1% since June. That is, of the people who get tested, less than 1% are testing positive. Compare that with Los Angeles 7% or Houston, 15%. This week, New Jersey saw its infection rate creep above 1%, which may suggest the virus is starting to spread in Jersey again.

Is a second wave still inevitable in our area, New York and New Jersey, or can it be avoided? With New York's testing numbers so low, is there a risk of getting complacent and unwittingly ushering in more cases with careless behavior like not complying with mandatory quarantines if you've traveled from out of state? Or will the opening of gyms, which Governor Cuomo now says they can do, and bowling alleys, which he now says they can do, and school, still a big controversy, be the things that finally get numbers rising again? With us now on the second wave or not is Dr. Irwin Redlener professor of pediatrics and director of the national center for disaster preparedness at Columbia University, cofounder of the Children's Health Fund and author of, The Future of Us: What the Dreams of Children Mean for Twenty-First-Century America. Dr. Redlener always a pleasure. Welcome back to WNYC. Do we have Dr. Redlener? I'm not hearing him if we do. Dr. Redlener, are you there?

Dr. Redlener: Yes. I'm here. I'm sorry.

Brian: Oh, now we got you. I apologize.

Dr. Redlener: I was just saying, always a pleasure to be with you, Brian, so yes, happy to be with you.

Brian: Maybe a second wave is not inevitable in New York. What do you think?

Dr. Redlener: Well, I think it actually is inevitable. Even though the infection rate right now is, as you mentioned, Brian, low, there are many, many, in the millions, of New Yorkers who are still vulnerable, including people who are vulnerable to getting very sick. Then the other thing is we don't live on an island with a moat around it. We live in a very fluid traveling society and people are going to come here with or without restrictions that are formally announced. There are people that are going to get through and there's no way to avoid that. I think the other big driver of a second wave is going to be the fact that we're reopening schools and the schools are going to become hotbeds for the infection to take hold again and then spread to the community. I think it's almost inevitable if we are, in fact, going to even hold some classes in real-time in real classrooms.

Brian: Listeners, I want to put this question out for some of you. This is a confession maybe that we're asking for. Maybe you're going to be willing to do this, or maybe you're not. But have you traveled to a high-risk state recently and then did you really isolate for the mandated 14 days when you got back or did you fudge it a little (646) 435-7280. Did you encounter a state official at one of the travel checkpoints at the airports or even on the roads? They're doing a little of this. What did they ask you about your travels and what did you say? (646) 435-7280. Or maybe you know someone who traveled recently and they did not isolate like they were supposed to. Did you call them out and ask them to change their behavior? (646) 435-7280 or maybe you're planning a trip soon. Are you factoring in having to isolate afterwards, and is that making you ambivalent about even going? The other news this week is gyms reopening, as I mentioned, with 30% capacity allowed.

If you own a gym or work at a gym or go to a gym-- Anybody actually ready to go--? I belong to a gym. I'm not ready. Who is ready to go back to your gym? (646) 435-7280, (646) 435 7280 for Dr. Irwin Redlener. Dr. Redlener are you concerned about the gyms in particular or not so much?

Dr. Redlener: Well, it depends. One of my grandsons is at the Ohio State University and he is going to a gym but the bathrooms are closed, the drinking fountains are closed. There's a limited number of people that are allowed in there. It depends on the details for this and for the opening of schools for that matter. I am concerned and I'm really concerned about other closed spaces opening like bars and restaurants. I think we have all kinds of variations, Brian, that in some cases may be okay and other cases will not be okay. We're going to have to depend on people really following the rules though, and being confident that the public, as well as the owners of these facilities, understand what's at stake and that they don't violate the rules because no one's watching them, they won't get caught or whatever. I think hopefully, most of the Yorkers are really quite compliant, certainly compared to some of the situations we see in the Sun Belt and down South and out West.

Brian: Do you think that there should be more stringent measures to close off either New York in particular or the region? Because really from New Jersey all the way up to Maine, it's pretty low. I know there's some new trouble in Massachusetts and Rhode Island a little bit but should we close off the region in any way that's more formal?

Dr. Redlener: Theoretically, from a public health point of view, you might say we should but I don't know that's possible. Really, I don't know that it's legal. This is really a complex question Brian, and I think, let's say we had major outbreaks all over the country once schools were opened, like really serious outbreaks, which is not out of the question, including exacerbation of the outbreaks that are already hotbeds in the South and the Sun Belt, but then we got places like New York that are experiencing the second wave, we actually might need some stringent national policy for let's say a couple of weeks where everything's closed. We go back with a full-on sheltering in place and everything closed. I think that is something that we might have to turn to because otherwise, we're going to keep getting these geographic waves of the COVID popping up at one place, getting under control, and then popping up somewhere else. In terms of walling off New York City, I wouldn't count on that actually happening.

Brian: Let's take a phone call. Kat, in Harding New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi Kat.

Kat: Hi. How are you? Thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to address the vacation going away to a hot state issue that we were discussing. My family and I will be leaving on Saturday for Topsail, North Carolina, and my understanding is that they have only had one case there for the entire COVID-19 Coronavirus time period. Originally, we had thought about maybe not quarantining when we got back for the entire period, but we've been so diligent the entire coronavirus. I do work in craft beer distribution which means I am on-premise at bars and restaurants for my professional job, that we will do the full quarantine when we return if North Carolina is still on the hotbed state lifts.

Brian: A good piece of modeling there for the rest of the world, Kat making the tough call to come back and do the full-on quarantine. Here's Kwame in East Orange our eyes and ears behind the wheel of an Uber. Kwame you're on WNYC. Hi.

Kwame: Hi Brian, first-time caller. I always listen to you on the radio doing my Uber.

Brian: You have a report from the airport.

Kwame: Yes. I usually pick a lot of passages from the Newark airport. Most of the passengers, when I talk to them I usually make them aware-- I usually ask them where they're coming from. If they are from the highway areas I usually make them aware that there was a 2-week quarantine measure going on. I even asked some of them if at the airports they get the forms to fill. Some of them told them to say that you don't get it or those that do say they filled out the forms, they don't sound like they're going to be quarantining for the two weeks. Usually, they just brush it off

or just are nonchalant about it.

Brian: Kwame, thank you very much. I hear the glint of recognition already in your voice Dr. Redlener.

Dr. Redlener: Yes, first of all, I think it's very diligent of Kwame to have those conversations with the clients that he picks up. I would wish that every driver would do the same especially picking up people from obviously airports or other transportation hubs. First of all, there's a point here that there is some increasing sense from the public health community that 14 days may not be necessary, that 10 days was probably sufficient. Just putting it out there. That's not become official policy yet but that could be coming. That would make it a little bit easier.

This is what I was talking about earlier, Brian, that people are going to come in and they're going to be more or less diligent about following the rules. If they don't follow the rules, they could potentially become spreaders of the coronavirus and set us on a course to really experience the second wave that we're concerned about.

Brian: Question. If you have a positive antibody test, do you still have to quarantine, or is that like the new American passport?

Dr. Redlener: Yes. This is a hot debate that's going on right now like today even, which is that, what does it mean if you have positive serology? I'll make a couple of points about that. First of all, Mount Sinai has tested serology looking for antibodies and, I don't know, something on the order of 20,000 people so far, and these are people that had a history of being COVID positive or exposed. The people that had positive antibodies by this serology testing, I think there's been literally zero cases of a second episode of COVID. What does that prove? Not all that much, as it turns out, because we don't know whether this is a short-lived immunity or like it could be three months and another couple of weeks and they're not going to be protected anymore. We have a lot of concerns about people assuming that they are never going to get it again if they had it once. There's no data to suggest that people should be complacent or confident about not being able to get infected a second time.

Brian: That's too bad. I asked if the positive antibody test is like the new American passport because the old American passport is pretty worthless these days since other countries aren't letting Americans in. Derek in Brooklyn--

Dr. Redlener: Yes. Even Canada [unintelligible 00:12:57].

Brian: Amazing. Build that wall. Derek in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Derek.

Derek: Hi, Brian. I feel like I've truly been waiting for you to ask this question because I have been so in prejudice about how this went. I had to fly home to see family in California. When I came back to JFK, I was expecting to go through a whole process. Actually, what I saw at the gates was just a guy handing out optional forms to fill out. If you did fill them out and turn them in you put it into a cardboard box. I didn't hear anything from the tracing test program until a full week after I had landed. That was a text message giving me basic information about quarantining and where to get tested. Then I didn't get a call from them until yesterday which was 10 days after landing. The guy basically told me that I needed to quarantine for 14 days and I told him, "Well, you're calling me on the 10th day of quarantine." All he said was that he had just been hearing that from a lot of people. I will also say that it was never apparent that there was an option to get a hotel room, which is an amazing resource for people that live with roommates, if they do want to quarantine.

Brian: Derek, I'm going to leave it there and get one more story in before we get one more reaction from Dr. Redlener but that is very telling. Jake on Staten Island, we've got about 30 seconds for you, Jake. Hi there.

Jake: Hi. I had gone to Florida actually just at the time that they were trying to get people from New York to quarantine. But as we came down there the quarantine location-- well, the testing location was closed. Then as we came back up, they started

the mandate up here in New York about three weeks ago. We quarantined-- I went food shopping a couple of times in between the two weeks, but otherwise, I didn't go anywhere. I don't know if that--

Brian: You don't know if that counts. Jake, I'm going to leave it there. I apologize for time. Dr. Redener, we have two stories here in our last couple of minutes that imply at least two different questions. The first caller, where is the enforcement? Could there be enforcement of the quarantine for people coming from high-risk states? For the last caller, does quarantine mean 100% or can I go out for groceries and other people a couple of times?

Dr. Redlener: This is the crux of the matter. Effective control and spread with respect to people coming from hot states, it depends on two things. One is having an effective efficient system that government is providing. This delay in reacting and giving information or requiring people to fill out the forms is unacceptable. The second part, of course, is, do we have the public's cooperation with all this? We're getting a C- minus D+ grade on the government side of things. I think probably the public is doing a little bit better, at least from your callers. It feels like people would comply if there were asked to. I just think there's so many holes in the system that we're not getting what we need, which is another reason that I'm very concerned and pretty confident that we will, in fact, get a second wave here in New York.

Brian: You mentioned schools. As for our callers, by the way, I'm sure they're not representative of the public at large. Our callers are very conscientious citizens. If nothing else, we have conscientious callers. You said schools--

Dr. Redlener: You should take responsibility for that. Yes.

Brian: I will take all the credit and not give any of it to the listeners themselves for their personal choices. 45 seconds left. Schools. The story from Chapel Hill yesterday, UNC the big university, they opened in-person for one week and then they shut down because there were clusters. The university is not the same as pre K through 12, but what are you anticipating for New York City public schools? Can it be better? 30 seconds.

Dr. Redlener: I don't think it's going to be that much better. I think we're going to get outbreaks. We're the only large city that's doing anything other than remote. I think we're not ready. The ventilation systems in schools have not been upgraded and that's a critical factor here. The teachers are concerned and I just think we're just going to have trouble. I wish we were delaying this opening till we have some more issues that we have been taking care of to make sure that there wasn't going to be an outbreak at school, but it's too soon.

Brian: Dr. Irwin Redlener senior research scholar and founding director of the National Center For Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University and author of the book, The Future Of Us. What The Dreams Of Children Mean For Twenty-First Century America. Thanks as always for coming on with us.

 

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