Health Advisories

[jo]

A NYTimes snapshot of how the city that neve sleeps ( maybe only took a nap) is slowly awakening --

From Katz’s Deli to Broadway, International Tourists Trickle Back

Overseas travelers are back in New York City after the U.S. borders reopened, but many businesses do not expect a major rebound until next year.

The crowds are picking up in Times Square, although foot traffic is still about 18 percent lower than it was before the pandemic.


By Nicole Hong, Patrick McGeehan and Chelsia Rose Marcius
Nov. 22, 2021
Updated 11:41 a.m. ET



The lines are getting longer at the Halal Guys food cart in the heart of Manhattan. The number of international visitors buying Statue of Liberty tickets has jumped more than 50 percent. And a few thousand more people are walking through Times Square.

After more than 18 months, the United States reopened its borders on Nov. 8 to vaccinated foreign travelers. Early indications suggest that they have been trickling back to New York, the top American destination city for international tourists.

But many businesses that depend on international visitors, including hotel operators and restaurants, see signs that even more tourists could start streaming in as the year-end holiday season approaches, providing a badly needed boost as the city’s labor force struggles to recover from the pandemic.

The tourism industry has increasingly become a pillar of New York’s economy. A record 66.6 million travelers visited the city in 2019, and their spending supported hundreds of thousands of jobs, from restaurant workers to museum security guards to bus drivers.



Some airlines reported that their first flights carrying tourists to New York in 20 months were fully booked.

“It really seems like the city is happy to show itself to the world again,” said Christiaan Vander Kuylen, who arrived recently from Brussels. “The energy is amazing.”

This was Mr. Vander Kuylen’s first trip to New York. He came to reunite with his partner, who moved here four months ago.

Mr. Vander Kuylen, 25, ate at Katz’s Delicatessen on the Lower East Side and watched “Moulin Rouge” on Broadway. He also shopped for jeans and sneakers in SoHo, a neighborhood where retailers have been pummeled by the drop in tourism.



For the city’s tourism officials, the return has been cause for optimism, even as they have projected only 2.8 million foreign travelers will visit New York this year, a steep plunge from the 13.5 million who visited in 2019.

Before the pandemic, about half of all credit-card sales at the city’s major department stores came from tourists. International visitors tend to spend more and book longer trips; they represent 20 percent of visitors to New York City, but account for half of the spending. Hotels especially depend on overseas travelers to fill up rooms on weeknights.

In 2019, the biggest groups of international travelers to New York came from the United Kingdom, China, Canada and Brazil.

Tourism projections were dampened by the fact that China still has severe restrictions on travelers leaving the country. In the years before the pandemic, each Chinese tourist in New York spent an average of $3,000, almost 60 percent higher than the average for international visitors, according to the New York State comptroller’s office.

Another cause for concern is the surge in coronavirus cases in European countries like the United Kingdom and Germany. To enter the U.S., international visitors must show a negative coronavirus test taken within three days before departure.

Still, the return of overseas travelers has already had an outsized effect on businesses like BO’s Bagels in Harlem, which had been a popular stop for European visitors during tours of Harlem churches.




Starting about a week ago, Andrew Martinez, the owner, noticed a flood of visitors to the store who did not speak English and ordered unusual combinations, like smoked salmon with Nutella on a bagel. Foot traffic was 30 percent higher than normal.

The demand made him feel more comfortable about adding two new employees, both of whom started within the last week. “It saved us,” Mr. Martinez, 48, said. “In the last week, it felt like I woke up from a coma and everything was just normal.”

At Battery Park in Lower Manhattan, the number of people boarding boats to visit the Statue of Liberty rose to about 5,500 a day in the second week of November, from about 3,500 a day before the American borders reopened, said Michael Burke, the chief operating officer of Statue Cruises. Overseas traffic to its ticket-booking website jumped by more than 60 percent in recent weeks, he said.

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In interviews with more than a dozen international visitors in New York City, many said they immediately booked tickets after the travel ban lifted to visit family or meet with business associates.

Dave Hughes, the chief executive of a start-up in Scotland, traveled from Glasgow, stopping in New York before heading to business meetings in Phoenix and Boston. Shortly after his flight landed, he went to his favorite Lower East Side bar, Milano’s Bar, where he was thrilled to see bartenders and other regulars he knew.

Before the pandemic, Mr. Hughes, 38, traveled several times a year to New York. This time, he was startled by the thinner crowds in Times Square and the vacant storefronts throughout the city.

“Walking around and not getting jostled by tourists with bags was definitely different,” he said.




On Nov. 13, the first Saturday after international tourists returned, more than 272,000 people walked through Times Square, a slight 1.2 percent increase from the prior Saturday, according to the Times Square Alliance, a business advocacy group. A comparable day in 2019 had about 330,000 pedestrians.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has also announced that Times Square will welcome the crowds back to its traditional New Year’s Eve ball drop, which he said was “further evidence to the world that we are 100 percent back.” (Attendees must be fully vaccinated.)

Just north of Times Square, at the Halal Guys food cart, business was up about 20 percent during the first weekend with international visitors, according to its chief marketing officer, Andrew Eck. Foreign tourists traditionally made up about 30 percent of customers at the cart, which was famous for the long lines of people waiting for its chicken and beef rice platters — and has now become a global franchise.

Still, some hotel and restaurant owners were cautious in their assessments, saying the reopening may have come too late to draw significant numbers of international visitors before next year.

“I personally think it’s going to be a bit of a slower burn,” said Mandy Oser, who has operated Ardesia Wine Bar in Hell’s Kitchen since 2009.

Business at Ardesia has improved steadily since Broadway theaters started reopening in September, but Ms. Oser is still waiting for a surge of tourists. Ms. Oser said she was looking forward to the arrival of an influencer from the Netherlands, who she hoped would spread word of Ardesia’s wine and cheese pairings.

Even without tourists, Ms. Oser expects business to be robust in December as local customers have been booking holiday parties and clamoring for New Year’s Eve reservations.




In the week ending Nov. 14, more than 214,000 people attended Broadway shows, an 11 percent increase from the prior week, according to the Broadway League, a trade organization representing producers and theater owners. It was not clear how much of the increase was because of international travelers, who typically make up one-fifth of attendees.

At Q4 Hotel, a hostel in Queens that relies almost exclusively on foreign travelers, bookings are nearly sold out for the end of November and December, according to Aaron Lajara, a hotel manager. The hostel, which has shared rooms for up to eight people, shut down for 19 months before reopening in October.

During that period, Mr. Lajara, 29, survived on unemployment benefits and federal stimulus checks.

“Financially, it was a struggle,” he said. “I was excited mentally to come back to work.”

Tourists will have more lodging options because several hotels reopened in the last month under pressure from a new local law that required them to pay $500 a week in severance to laid-off workers unless they opened their doors and rehired at least 25 percent of their employees.

Two of the biggest hotels in the city — the Hilton and the Grand Hyatt in Midtown — reopened this fall. But several are still closed, leaving thousands of hotel workers unemployed.

It will likely take longer for larger tour groups, a lucrative source of income for tourist destinations, to return in full force. A spokesman for the 9/11 Memorial & Museum said international groups are booking tickets for spring 2022.



Tourism overall is not expected to return to 2019 levels until 2024, according to projections from the city’s tourism agency.

Andy Sydor, a certified tour guide for more than two decades, is living off his savings from 2019, when he worked every day in June and July. That period was so overcrowded, he said, that there were sometimes three-hour waits to enter the Statue of Liberty.



In recent months, Mr. Sydor, 58, has led private tours of Brooklyn, where he can make $50 an hour, with visitors from states like Oklahoma and Florida. But he has not yet booked an international group during the pandemic.

“If I saw even a single international booking, I’d be a little more excited,” he said.

John Fitzpatrick, who owns two Fitzpatrick hotels in Midtown, said the first wave of visitors from overseas seemed to have been headed to the homes of relatives for long-awaited reunions. “Even if they’re coming to see family, they’re still coming into the city to shop,” he said.

Another wave of tourists is on its way, Mr. Fitzpatrick said, judging by his bookings. He said all 250 of his rooms were sold out for the first weekend in December, with a large number of guests from Ireland.

“It’s coming,” he said.



Michael Paulson contributed reporting.

Nicole Hong writes about New York City's economy. Before joining The Times, she was a law enforcement reporter for The Wall Street Journal, where she was part of a team that won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting.

Patrick McGeehan writes about transportation and infrastructure for the Metro section. He has been a reporter for The Times since 1999 and has covered Wall Street, executive pay, transportation, the New York City economy and New Jersey. @nytpatrick

[jo]

New ‘Variant of Concern’ Fuels Global Fear of Another Virus Surge


Scientists do not yet know how dangerous the new Omicron variant is, but its many mutations set off alarms, lowering hopes of putting the pandemic in the past.


By Richard Pérez-Peña and Jason Horowitz
Published Nov. 26, 2021
Updated Nov. 27, 2021, 12:28 a.m. ET


The world reacted with alarm on Friday to the highly mutated new coronavirus variant discovered in southern Africa, as the United States, the European Union and nations across the globe imposed new travel restrictions, financial markets swooned and visions of finally emerging from the pandemic started to dim.

Just two days after the world learned of the variant, the World Health Organization officially labeled it a “variant of concern,” its most serious category — the first since the Delta variant, which emerged a year ago. The designation means that the variant has mutations that might make it more contagious or more virulent, or make vaccines and other preventive measures less effective — though none of those effects has yet been established.





Coronavirus Variants and Mutations

After an emergency meeting, the W.H.O. warned in a statement that “preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant” in people who have already had Covid-19. In keeping with the practice of naming variants for letters of the Greek alphabet, it dubbed the new one Omicron.


The W.H.O. and scientists on multiple continents cautioned that very little is known yet about the Omicron variant, or about whether the dangers it poses will justify the fears it is stoking. South African scientists announced its existence on Wednesday, and the number of cases definitively identified, all of them within the past three weeks, is still small, under 100.

But the swift global responses demonstrated that after nearly two years of facing accusations that they were too slow and timid in tackling the pandemic, many policymakers would rather risk overreacting to a new threat than underreacting.

.

On Friday, Israel, Singapore, several European nations individually, and then the European Union as a whole, the United States and Canada followed the lead set by Britain on Thursday night, temporarily barring foreign travelers who have recently been in South Africa or any of several neighboring countries. As with past travel bans, countries are allowing their own citizens and permanent residents to return home if they test negative for the virus, with some requiring additional testing and quarantine after arrival.





President Biden made the decision to bar travelers from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi, starting Monday, after a briefing by his top advisers on the pandemic, including Dr. Anthony Fauci.

“I’ve decided that we’re going to be cautious,” Mr. Biden told reporters in Nantucket, where he spent Thanksgiving with his family. “We don’t know a lot about the variant except that it is a great concern and seems to spread rapidly.”

Officials warned that even with quickly enacted travel restrictions, Omicron, like past variants, is certain to spread and reach the United States, although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement Friday night that no cases had been identified as yet.

“It’s going to buy us some time,” Dr. Fauci said in an interview. “It’s not going to be possible to keep this infection out of the country. The question is: Can you slow it down?”

“You don’t want to say don’t worry, and you don’t want to say you’ve got to worry yourself sick, because we’re gathering information rapidly,” Dr. Fauci said, adding, “Even though the numbers are still small, the doubling time is pretty rapid and the slope of the increase is really rather sharp.”


The administration is already in talks with vaccine makers about the possibility that they may have to reformulate the shots to respond to the variant, according to another administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. But first, scientists would need to determine that existing vaccines really are less effective against Omicron, a process that is expected to take weeks, if not longer.



Stock indexes and oil prices tumbled around the world, as news of the variant and travel restrictions — coming in the economically vital holiday season — raised fears of yet more financial damage caused by the pandemic. On Friday, the S&P 500 index logged its worst day since February, falling 2.3 percent, and European stock markets fell 3 to 5 percent. Benchmark oil futures fell 13 percent in the United States and 11 percent in Europe.






The Coronavirus Pandemic: Latest Updates
Updated
Nov. 26, 2021, 10:16 p.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago

Australia bars foreign arrivals from nine African countries.
New York governor declares a state of emergency in anticipation of new coronavirus surge.
After detecting the Omicron variant, South Africa feels ‘punished’ by global travel bans.
Scientists have identified about 50 mutations in the genome of the Omicron variant that set it apart from other variants, far more than in any previous variant, including more than 30 on the spike protein that the virus uses to bind to host cells.

Changes in the spike protein are particularly worrisome because immune system antibodies that fight the virus — whether they are induced by infection or by vaccination — primarily recognize and target the spike.

But a leading Italian virologist, Roberto Burioni, said people should not panic, writing on Twitter, “Substantively NOTHING is known about the new variant.”


In addition to South Africa, the variant has been found in a handful of people in Botswana, Belgium, Israel and Hong Kong, but experience with previous variants suggests that when the first cases are identified, it is likely more have gone undetected.

“This variant has been detected at faster rates than previous surges in infection, suggesting that this variant may have a growth advantage,” the W.H.O. said.

[jo]

[njr]

If this is still in place in August, we may have to cancel our August trip to the U.K. for the 3rd time! 😢

economyclassandbeyond.boardingarea.com/2021/11/27/uk-imposes-new-entry-criteria-self-isolation-and-pcr-test-required-for-all-arrivals/

Nancy

[jo]

Adamantium shot - LOL!

[njr]

Omicron May Require Fourth Vaccine Dose, Pfizer Says
Carolyn Crist

December 09, 2021

Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center.

The new Omicron variant could make it more likely that people will need a fourth coronavirus vaccine earlier than expected, Pfizer officials said on Wednesday.

The standard two doses may be less effective against the variant, the company announced earlier in the day, and a booster dose increases neutralizing antibodies.

But the timeline might need to be moved up for a fourth dose. Previously, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, PhD, said another dose might be needed about a year after a third shot. Now the company's scientists believe that a fourth shot, which targets the Omicron variant, could be required sooner.

"With Omicron, we need to wait and see because we have very little information. We may need it faster," Bourla said on CNBC's Squawk Box.

"But for right now, the most important thing is that we have winter in front of us," he said. "From a healthcare perspective, it is important to understand that we need to be well-protected to go through the winter."

A third dose should provide protection throughout the winter, Bourla said. That may buy time until the early spring to develop new shots that target Omicron, which Pfizer could have ready by March, according to Bloomberg News.

As of Wednesday afternoon, 43 people in 19 states had tested positive for the Omicron variant, according to The Associated Press. More than 75% had been vaccinated, and a third had had booster shots. About a third had traveled internationally.

Nearly all of them have had mild symptoms so far, the AP reported, with the most common symptoms being a cough, congestion, and fatigue. One person has been hospitalized, but no deaths have been reported so far.

The CDC is still trying to determine how the Omicron variant may affect the course of the pandemic and whether the strain is more contagious or causes more severe disease.

"What we generally know is the more mutations a variant has, the higher level you need your immunity to be," Rochelle Walensky, MD, director of the CDC, told the AP.

"We want to make sure we bolster everybody's immunity," she said. "And that's really what motivated the decision to expand our guidance [on boosters for all adults]."

The Omicron variant has been reported in 57 countries so far, World Health Organization officials reported on Wednesday, and they expect that number to continue growing.

"Certain features of Omicron, including its global spread and large number of mutations, suggest it could have a major impact on the course of the pandemic. Exactly what that impact will be is still difficult to know," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, the World Health Organization's director-general, said during a media briefing.

Several studies suggest that Omicron leads to a rapid increase in transmission, he said, though scientists are still trying to understand whether it can "outcompete Delta." Data from South Africa also suggests a higher risk of reinfection with Omicron, though it appears to cause milder disease than Delta, he noted.

"Even though we still need answers to some crucial questions, we are not defenseless against Omicron or Delta," he said. "The steps countries take today, and in the coming days and weeks, will determine how Omicron unfolds."

[jo]

"Amaryllis" (Kayla Teruel) from the cast of The Music Man gets her vaccine shot!

http://instagram.com/p/CXVAkrxNVO6

It is said that the cast are tested 3x a week!


Jo

[jo]

I basically follow 2 people on Twitter because of their talent, love of their calling, their kind of advocacies & their reputation for being decent and humble human beings.

The first one, Rafa Nadal, was struck by COVID after at an early tennis tournament. Competitive tennis cannot be played with masks on. His participation in the Australian Tennis Open became doubtful.

But look --

The other one is Hugh Jackman! Just like sports, live theatre is performed without masks and involve some actions ( singing & some aspects of acting) that are medically-risky.

We hope he will share with fans news of his medical progress soon. Also, his active use of social media re current events seems an indication that maybe Hugh is on the way to full recovery?

Hoping for the best for these role models!

Jo

[jo]

[njr]

4 free home tests per household:

www.covidtests.gov/

Free N95 masks to be shipped to pharmacies, etc. for distribution:

www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/01/19/covid-biden-make-400-million-n-95-masks-available-free/6570934001/

[jo]

From the New York Times --

What does this mean for Broadway?

Dropping Indoor Mask Mandate, New York Joins Blue States Easing Covid Rules


After a scare in November, New Jersey’s governor and other Democratic leaders held back-channel talks over lifting mandates and helping voters impatient with restrictions reclaim a sense of normalcy.


Gov. Kathy Hochul will drop New York’s stringent indoor mask mandate on Wednesday, ending a requirement that businesses ask customers for proof of full vaccination or require mask wearing at all times, and marking a turning point in the state’s coronavirus response, according to three people briefed on her decision.

The decision will eliminate a rule that prompted legal and interpersonal clashes over mask wearing, especially in conservative parts of New York. It was set to expire on Thursday and would have required renewing.

Ms. Hochul’s decision will let the mask mandate lapse just as a crushing winter surge in coronavirus cases is finally receding. But it was not yet clear whether the governor would renew or drop a separate mask mandate in New York schools that is set to expire in two weeks.

The easing of New York’s pandemic restrictions on businesses comes as Democratic-led states from New Jersey to California have announced similar moves this week, in a loosely coordinated effort that is the result of months of public-health planning, back-channel discussions and political focus groups that began in the weeks after the November election.


It was Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey who began the effort last fall, weeks after he was stunned by the energy of right-wing voters in his blue state, who nearly ousted him from office in what was widely expected to be an easy re-election campaign. Arranging a series of focus groups across the state to see what they had missed, Mr. Murphy’s advisers were struck by the findings: Across the board, voters shared frustrations over public health measures, a sense of pessimism about the future and a deep desire to return to some sense of normalcy.


Then, Omicron hit, delaying any easing of restrictions.

But slowly, as case rates began to fall again in January, conversations between Mr. Murphy’s aides and senior officials in other states began to pick back up. Even Democratic voters, they agreed, were wearying of the toughest restrictions, growing increasingly impatient with mandates and feeling ready to live with the risk that remained. As cases plummeted, the public health dynamics were shifting, too, and officials grappled with how to arrive at a new sense of normal.

Last week, they took their concerns to the White House. As members of the National Governors Association gathered for a meeting in the East Room, several asked President Biden to provide clear guidelines for their states to move from the crisis footing of a pandemic to a recognition that the virus was here to stay — and that it could be managed without completely upending daily life.

“What does the road from pandemic to endemic look like, and how do we keep score?” Mr. Murphy, the association’s vice chairman, later told reporters, describing the discussion. “There was broad agreement that that’s the task before us.”



The administration’s guidance didn’t come quickly enough for Mr. Murphy, however. On Monday, he acted — without White House support — by announcing that New Jersey would no longer require students and school employees to wear masks, in defiance of the current recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

With that, a dam had broken. Within hours, Democratic governors in California, Connecticut, Delaware and Oregon moved to lift some mask mandates, and other states and cities indicated that mandates may be ending soon. In Boston, Mayor Michelle Wu laid out benchmarks on Tuesday for when the city would lift proof-of-vaccine requirements if hospitalizations and case numbers continued to fall.

Even in Virginia, where an executive order making masks optional in schools, by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, is tied up in legal challenges from liberal school districts, 10 out of 21 Democratic state Senators joined with Republicans on Tuesday to advance legislation that would do just that.



In New York, the lifting of the mandate on businesses would have far-reaching effects on many public settings, including retail shops, restaurants and malls as well as workplaces — a boon for companies struggling to attract workers back to their offices.

Ms. Hochul’s move would not affect the mask mandate in New York schools, which expires on Feb. 21 and has become increasingly contentious, sparking heated feuds among parents, teachers and students over public health and individual liberties.

Ms. Hochul said this week that she hoped to ease mask rules in schools eventually, but that the state first needed to scrutinize public health metrics. “I am optimistic that we’re trending in that direction, but I still need the time,” she said on Monday.


Her decision also would not appear to affect certain local, federal and other requirements around masking in specific settings, meaning masks would still be required on trains, airplanes and buses and in health care facilities like hospitals and nursing homes.



It is unclear if some localities with their own strict mask and vaccination rules might follow Ms. Hochul’s lead and potentially lift their restrictions, too.

In New York City, for example, proof of vaccination is required to dine indoors, attend events at arenas, work out at gyms and go to the movies. That requirement has been in place through a program known as “Key to NYC,” which was implemented through an executive order from the mayor and must be renewed every five days. City officials said Tuesday that the order was being renewed.


While the movement to loosen pandemic restrictions began in swing states like Colorado, Pennsylvania and Michigan, its spread to some of the bluest states reflects a country entering a new political phase in the nearly two-year-long pandemic. After years of urging their voters to follow the science, Democrats in the states are moving more quickly to lift restrictions than the Biden administration, which remains scarred after all but declaring victory against the virus last summer only to greet the Delta variant.

Driving these decisions are the growing numbers of voters signaling that they are prepared to live with the virus as it is now, and political calculations about looming midterm elections that already have Democrats on the defensive.

Democrats used their “trust the science” mantra in the pandemic’s early days to project competence and skewer Republicans who were flouting public health guidance, but even the White House now acknowledges the growing gap between public opinion and the advice of the president’s public health advisers.

Moreover, some health experts warn that daylight on Covid restrictions between the Democratic administration and Democratic governors could undermine the already weakened federal public health authorities.



“It’s a serious problem when most of the country is actively defying C.D.C. recommendations,” said Dr. Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University. “Governors and local officials are seeing the sentiments of the people they’re serving. And public health has to meet people where they are.”

In a new wave of national polls, growing numbers of Americans have expressed a willingness to move on from the strictest mandates. Seven in 10 respondents to a recent poll by Monmouth University agreed that “it’s time we accept Covid is here to stay and we just need to get on with our lives.”

Mask mandates ending. Several Democratic governors have announced plans to roll back mask mandates for schools and indoor public spaces, citing a drop in recent infections. But the move to loosen the restrictions for schools has divided public health experts.

Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The company quietly paused vaccine production at a key factory, raising concern over whether it can meet commitments to developing nations. It is not clear whether the halt has had an impact on vaccine supplies yet, thanks to stockpiles.

Around the world. As Ottawa remained paralyzed by protests against Covid measures, a new truck blockade effectively cut off Canada’s busiest link to the U.S. In Europe, Italy is ending its outdoor mask mandate while Denmark has dropped all restrictions.

Staying safe. Follow some basic guidance on when to test, which mask to pick and how to use at-home virus tests. Here is what to do if you test positive for the coronavirus, and if you lose your vaccination card.

The rush to turn the page also risks missing an opportunity for Democrats to claim credit for successfully managing the pandemic at a moment when they sorely need to be able to point to major accomplishments, party strategists say.

“We should be pointing to the fact that these successes are because of things that we did,” said Brian Stryker, a partner at the polling firm ALG Research, pointing to vaccination rates and the expected release of vaccines for young children in the next several weeks. “Democrats need to take the win on how far we’ve come.”

Mr. Stryker, whose work on Virginia’s elections last year indicated that school closures hurt Democrats, said that moving past the crisis point of the pandemic would allow Democrats to focus more heavily on the economy and personal finances — issues that he said were increasingly overshadowing concerns about the pandemic.

“This is a moment for us to say that this phase of the pandemic, where you as a vaccinated person need to be scared all the time, is over and it is time to live again,” he said. “It will be well received by voters and also gives us the space to talk about other things voters are really concerned about.”


At the same time, Democrats at the state and local level face a more pressing political challenge than the White House. In midterm races, Republicans are eager to shame and name liberal opponents over the tough restrictions they imposed — and over instances in which they personally appear to flout them.




On Monday, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, called Representative Elissa Slotkin of Michigan “another Democrat hypocrite” after Ms. Slotkin posted a photo of herself unmasked at an indoor campaign event.

And over the weekend, Stacey Abrams, the Georgia Democrat running for governor, deleted a photograph she had tweeted that showed her smiling, mask-free, in front of a classroom full of children wearing masks at a Georgia school.

“This is the Georgia Stacey Abrams wants,” warned a digital ad with which the campaign of former Senator David Perdue, a Republican running for governor, sought to capitalize on the misstep. “Unmask our kids.”

Tuesday night, Ms. Abrams said she had erred by taking the photograph. “Protocols matter,” she said on CNN. “And protecting our kids is the most important thing. And anything that can be perceived as undermining that is a mistake, and I apologize.”

[mamaleh]

Well, the Broadway League still has all its Covid protocols and policies in force. So until those change, it’s masks and proof of vaccine as usual.

Ellen

[jo]

www.nytimes.com/article/mask-mandates-guidelines.html

The Coronavirus Pandemic

Mask Questions, Answered

Should You Still Wear a Mask?
Experts weigh in on where, and when, you can safely take one off.


By Amelia Nierenberg and Illustrations by Tim Peacock
Feb. 19, 2022
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As masking mandates lift and new coronavirus infections fall across the United States, there’s lots of confusion about if, and when, to wear a mask.

“This is the hardest thing of all, because it’s not just the risks and benefits to you,” said Dr. Robert Wachter, a professor and the chair of the medicine department at the University of California, San Francisco. “It’s the risks and benefits to the people around you.”

One good way to frame the issue is to ask: Who is the most vulnerable person in your immediate circle?

If you have compromised immunity, for example, or live with someone who does, it’s a good idea to continue to wear a mask and maintain social distance around strangers, especially in indoor areas with standing air where the virus may collect. Masks are also important if you’re unvaccinated or spending time with others who are unvaccinated. Unvaccinated people are at overwhelmingly higher risk of hospitalization and death from Covid-19. Masks are also a must in hospitals, where there are many vulnerable people.

But if you’re otherwise healthy and have received your vaccine and booster shots, your risk of getting seriously ill with Covid is extraordinarily small. It’s about in line with other risks people take every day, such as driving in a car.

Many people “are weighing the fact that they would love to go back to normal and may be willing to accept a little bit of risk in order to gain a level of simplicity that they last knew in 2019,” Dr. Wachter said. “That’s not irrational.”

There’s also always the risk that someone may develop long-Covid, even if they are vaccinated, though much about the condition remains unknown.

If infection rates where you live are high, which has been pretty much everywhere during the latest Omicron wave, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to recommend masks in most indoor spaces. But in many situations, the decision to wear a mask is becoming a personal one.

We spoke to experts to help give you a guide to the places, and the situations, where it’s a good idea to cover your face.




Should you mask outside?
There’s little scientific evidence to show that face coverings offer much added protection in many outdoor spaces such as sidewalks or parks. Things get a little hairier with crowds, like at a concert or sports venue.

“If you can’t feel wind on your cheeks, you’re probably not in an area of great outdoor ventilation,” said Dr. Asaf Bitton, a primary care doctor who is the executive director of Ariadne Labs, a public health innovation center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “If you’re really shoulder-to-shoulder with people, that might be a case of outdoor mask wearing, at least for now.”

Erin Bromage, an associate professor of biology who studies infectious diseases at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, has helped touring music bands assess Covid risks throughout the pandemic. The main place he’s seen risk of transmission in concerts is in the standing-room-only area close to the stage.

“Where the risk is mainly focused is the pits at the very, very front of the stage where people are on top of each other singing, physically exerting,” Dr. Bromage said.

Most outdoor concerts, though, are generally safe, he said. “If you’re standing on a lawn watching a show, there’s really no data to support that a mask does anything to protect you that Mother Nature’s not taking care of.”

And if the venue requires vaccines or a recent negative Covid test, you’re in even better shape.




How about indoor spaces, like supermarkets or gyms?
First and foremost, follow the norms and the rules of the business you’re entering. If the sign at the door says “Mask Required,” you don’t want to make retail workers have to enforce policies over which they have no control. Their jobs are hard enough, and everyone can wear a mask with little to no sacrifice.

If the business is mask optional, consider the space, the crowds and the airflow.

Dr. Bromage suggests a cigarette analogy: If someone were smoking, would the smell and taste of cigarettes quickly fill the air? If yes, so would the virus. You’d be smart to wear a mask. If not, it’s unlikely that you’ll get infected.

“When I walk into a space, I always do that,” Dr. Bromage said. “How high are the ceilings? Is the air moving? Can I create my own little buffer of space?”


The C.D.C. advises some people wait longer between the first and second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.
Los Angeles County removes mask mandate for indoor public places.

Take a big box store with high ceilings. “Those tend to have good ventilation and because of the high ceilings, there’s a lot of dilution,” said Linsey Marr, an engineering professor at Virginia Tech who studies the airborne transmission of viruses. “The risks are pretty low, unless you’re in a crowded line waiting to check out.”

“If it’s a smaller space and crowded space, Trader Joe’s, for example, or some New York market with tiny aisles and people are really packed in there, the risk is higher,” she continued. “You might want to wear a mask.”

A hair salon might be a small space, Dr. Bromage said, but there typically won’t be that many people inside the business, so the risk of an infected person passing through will generally be low, especially as case counts fall.

At a restaurant, one person’s cigarette smoke at the next table over wouldn’t fill the air above yours. But you would smell someone smoking at your own table, so your direct dining companions pose the highest risk, Dr. Bromage said.

The gym may feel especially scary. Heavier breathing can expel more virus particles, but most gyms have excellent ventilation systems. (“If gyms did not have good air circulation, they would stink,” Dr. Bromage said.) That means any virus particles that may be floating around are also being sucked away with the sweat smell.

Dr. Bromage again uses the cigarette analogy. He’d run on the treadmill unmasked, but he’d put an extra treadmill between himself and another runner. But a spin class, in a small room with “people shouting, yelling, huffing puffing”? Probably not yet, he said.



What about on public transit or airplane?
Public transit is exempt from local mandates: You are still required to wear a mask, per federal requirements.

It’s also just a good idea — on buses and subways, there are a lot of strangers moving in and out of a tight, enclosed space.





Maternal deaths. The number of women in the U.S. who died during pregnancy or shortly after spiked in the pandemic’s first year, especially among Black and Hispanic women, according to a new study. Officials attribute the increase partly to Covid and pandemic-related disruptions.

U.S. mask rules. Los Angeles County will remove its indoor mask mandate for people who can show proof of vaccination, officials said. In-flight and airport mask mandates are slated to be lifted in the U.S. next month, but some flight attendants say it’s too soon.

Around the world. Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain lifted England’s Covid rules to move “back towards normality,” but high-risk people said the move will constrict their lives instead. In South Korea, officials approved Pfizer’s vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds, as Omicron cases soar.

“That is somewhere I would probably still wear a mask,” Dr. Marr said.

On airplanes, you should definitely wear a mask. There’s no national mandate requiring airline passengers to be vaccinated, so even if you’re vaccinated, you don’t know the status of the people around you.

Also, you don’t want to ruin your vacation or business trip by becoming infected and having to quarantine, even if your risk of becoming seriously sick remains low.



What about when my child goes to school?
Public health experts agree that school mask mandates should not last forever, but they differ on whether the time has come to remove them. For parents, changing rules can be confusing.

Here are a few things to consider in making the choice for your own family.

Children almost never suffer severe symptoms, whether or not they’re vaccinated. Many students have gone to school without masks during the pandemic — like in Britain, part of Europe and many U.S. states — and very few children have gotten seriously sick.

“The risk to children has always been lower than it is to adults,” said Dr. David Rubin, a professor of pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

The jury is also still out on whether masks impede social development. But several studies do suggest that a mask makes communication difficult, inhibiting children’s ability to recognize one another or each other’s emotions.

“Children and their schools have had to shoulder a collective burden, largely to protect the adults in their lives,” said Dr. Rubin, who is also the director of PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

And as much of the world opens up, consider all the ways children hang out with each other. Masks may stop transmission in the classroom itself, but children interact outside of school hours.

“Masks don’t work when people are wearing them in one circumstance, but later that day, they take them off,” said Dr. Bromage, who has consulted with schools about different mask policies. “All we’re doing is transferring infection from the school to after school.”

Also, know that the United States is an outlier in its devotion to pediatric masks. The World Health Organization does not recommend them for kids under 5, and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control doesn’t recommend them for children under 12.



What if you have the sniffles?
Covid is not the only bug floating around, nor is it the only one that can be harmful to vulnerable people. The flu, for example, kills more than 30,000 Americans in a typical season, most of whom are older adults or immunocompromised.

“Flus and colds are probably transmitted the same way as Covid,” Dr. Marr said. “If you feel a little sick, then you could be shedding virus into the air and transmitting to other people. You should stay home or, if you must go out, wear a mask.”


And what type of mask should you wear?
A well-fitting, high quality mask will protect you, experts say, even if other people aren’t covering their airways.

KN95, N95 and KF94 masks are the best protection around, just make sure they’re not counterfeit. Cloth masks offer limited protection — especially if you don’t add a filter or a second mask — and surgical masks often gape.

Here’s a Wirecutter guide to buying N95 and KN95 masks, and here’s how to spot a fake.

[jo]

From the NYTImes --

PERSONAL HEALTH

The Health Benefits of Coffee

Drinking coffee has been linked to a reduced risk of all kinds of ailments, including Parkinson’s disease, melanoma, prostate cancer, even suicide.



Jane E. Brody
By Jane E. Brody
June 14, 2021


Americans sure love their coffee. Even last spring when the pandemic shut down New York, nearly every neighborhood shop that sold takeout coffee managed to stay open, and I was amazed at how many people ventured forth to start their stay-at-home days with a favorite store-made brew.

One elderly friend who prepandemic had traveled from Brooklyn to Manhattan by subway to buy her preferred blend of ground coffee arranged to have it delivered. “Well worth the added cost,” she told me. I use machine-brewed coffee from pods, and last summer when it seemed reasonably safe for me to shop I stocked up on a year’s supply of the blends I like. (Happily, the pods are now recyclable.)

All of us should be happy to know that whatever it took to secure that favorite cup of Joe may actually have helped to keep us healthy. The latest assessments of the health effects of coffee and caffeine, its main active ingredient, are reassuring indeed. Their consumption has been linked to a reduced risk of all kinds of ailments, including Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, gallstones, depression, suicide, cirrhosis, liver cancer, melanoma and prostate cancer.

In fact, in numerous studies conducted throughout the world, consuming four or five eight-ounce cups of coffee (or about 400 milligrams of caffeine) a day has been associated with reduced death rates. In a study of more than 200,000 participants followed for up to 30 years, those who drank three to five cups of coffee a day, with or without caffeine, were 15 percent less likely to die early from all causes than were people who shunned coffee. Perhaps most dramatic was a 50 percent reduction in the risk of suicide among both men and women who were moderate coffee drinkers, perhaps by boosting production of brain chemicals that have antidepressant effects.



As a report published last summer by a research team at the Harvard School of Public Health concluded, although current evidence may not warrant recommending coffee or caffeine to prevent disease, for most people drinking coffee in moderation “can be part of a healthy lifestyle.”

It wasn’t always thus. I’ve lived through decades of sporadic warnings that coffee could be a health hazard. Over the years, coffee’s been deemed a cause of conditions such as heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, pancreatic cancer, anxiety disorder, nutrient deficiencies, gastric reflux disease, migraine, insomnia, and premature death. As recently as 1991, the World Health Organization listed coffee as a possible carcinogen. In some of the now-discredited studies, smoking, not coffee drinking (the two often went hand-in-hand) was responsible for the purported hazard.

“These periodic scares have given the public a very distorted view,” said Dr. Walter C. Willett, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Overall, despite various concerns that have cropped up over the years, coffee is remarkably safe and has a number of important potential benefits.”

That’s not to say coffee warrants a totally clean bill of health. Caffeine crosses the placenta into the fetus, and coffee drinking during pregnancy can increase the risk of miscarriage, low birth weight and premature birth. Pregnancy alters how the body metabolizes caffeine, and women who are pregnant or nursing are advised to abstain entirely, stick to decaf or at the very least limit their caffeine intake to less than 200 milligrams a day, the amount in about two standard cups of American coffee.

The most common ill effect associated with caffeinated coffee is sleep disturbance. Caffeine locks into the same receptor in the brain as the neurotransmitter adenosine, a natural sedative. Dr. Willett, a co-author of the Harvard report, told me, “I really do love coffee, but I have it only occasionally because otherwise I don’t sleep very well. Lots of people with sleep problems don’t recognize the connection to coffee.”




In discussing his audiobook on caffeine with Terry Gross on NPR last winter, Michael Pollan called caffeine “the enemy of good sleep” because it interferes with deep sleep. He confessed that after the challenging task of weaning himself from coffee, he “was sleeping like a teenager again.”

Dr. Willett, now 75, said, “You don’t have to get to zero consumption to minimize the impact on sleep,” but he acknowledged that a person’s sensitivity to caffeine “probably increases with age.” People also vary widely in how rapidly they metabolize caffeine, enabling some to sleep soundly after drinking caffeinated coffee at dinner while others have trouble sleeping if they have coffee at lunch. But even if you can fall asleep readily after an evening coffee, it may disrupt your ability to get adequate deep sleep, Mr. Pollan states in his forthcoming book, “This Is Your Mind on Plants.”

Dr. Willett said it’s possible to develop a degree of tolerance to caffeine’s effect on sleep. My 75-year-old brother, an inveterate imbiber of caffeinated coffee, claims it has no effect on him. However, acquiring a tolerance to caffeine could blunt its benefit if, say, you wanted it to help you stay alert and focused while driving or taking a test.

Caffeine is one of more than a thousand chemicals in coffee, not all of which are beneficial. Among others with positive effects are polyphenols and antioxidants. Polyphenols can inhibit the growth of cancer cells and lower the risk of Type 2 diabetes; antioxidants, which have anti-inflammatory effects, can counter both heart disease and cancer, the nation’s leading killers.

None of this means coffee is beneficial regardless of how it’s prepared. When brewed without a paper filter, as in French press, Norwegian boiled coffee, espresso or Turkish coffee, oily chemicals called diterpenes come through that can raise artery-damaging LDL cholesterol. However, these chemicals are virtually absent in both filtered and instant coffee. Knowing I have a cholesterol problem, I dissected a coffee pod and found a paper filter lining the plastic cup. Whew!




Also countering the potential health benefits of coffee are popular additions some people use, like cream and sweet syrups, that can convert this calorie-free beverage into a calorie-rich dessert. “All the things people put into coffee can result in a junk food with as many as 500 to 600 calories,” Dr. Willett said. A 16-ounce Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino, for example, has 51 grams of sugar, 15 grams of fat (10 of them saturated) and 370 calories.

With iced coffee season approaching, more people are likely to turn to cold-brew coffee. Now rising in popularity, cold brew counters coffee’s natural acidity and the bitterness that results when boiling water is poured over the grounds. Cold brew is made by steeping the grounds in cold water for several hours, then straining the liquid through a paper filter to remove the grounds and harmful diterpenes and keep the flavor and caffeine for you to enjoy. Cold brew can also be made with decaffeinated coffee.

Decaf is not totally without health benefits. As with caffeinated coffee, the polyphenols it contains have anti-inflammatory properties that may lower the risk of Type 2 diabetes and cancer.



Jane Brody is the Personal Health columnist, a position she has held since 1976. She has written more than a dozen books including the best sellers “Jane Brody’s Nutrition Book” and “Jane Brody’s Good Food Book.”

[jo]

Is NYC becoming infected again?

And is Broadway more prone? Several new shows cancelled shows due to infections (mostly in previews, like Daniel Craig for Macbeth & Matthew Broderick of Plaza Suite))



From the NY Times --

NEW YORK

As Yet Another Wave of Covid Looms, New Yorkers Ask: Should I Worry?


As Yet Another Wave of Covid Looms, New Yorkers Ask: Should I Worry?

The Omicron subvariant BA.2 is causing an increase in infections, especially in Manhattan. But hospitalizations have yet to rise.


New York City is averaging about 1,500 new coronavirus cases daily.


By Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Otterman
April 7, 2022


Driven by an Omicron subvariant, Covid-19 cases have been ticking up steadily across Manhattan, Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, threatening New York City with a fifth wave of coronavirus cases just weeks after the city lifted many mask and vaccine requirements.

The city is registering about 1,500 new cases a day and a positivity rate of nearly 3 percent, both figures more than double what they were a month ago. In Manhattan, where the last wave also first emerged, the positivity rate is above 6 percent in some neighborhoods.

In another potentially worrisome indicator, the prevalence of fevers across the city — which can offer a forewarning of Covid trends — has reached levels last seen at some of the worst points of the pandemic, according to data from internet-connected thermometers.

And anecdotal signs of spreading infection are evident across the region. On Broadway, the actors Matthew Broderick and Daniel Craig have recently tested positive, as have New Jersey’s governor and at least three members of the New York City Council.



“We may be done with the virus, but the virus isn’t done with us,” Brad Lander, the city’s comptroller, said after he tested positive last week.

CORONAVIRUS TESTINGHow and where to get a free Covid test in New York City.
The Omicron subvariant BA.2, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimates makes up 84 percent of cases in the New York region, is even more contagious than its predecessor.

But so far it has not shown the same explosive speed as the earlier form of Omicron, which in late December and early January propelled cases in New York City past 40,000 per day. Instead, BA.2 is causing a slowly but steadily rising tide of illness. It has yet to produce a rise in hospitalizations, and deaths remain low.


As the subvariant spreads, city health officials expect the entire city to enter the medium risk category in the next two weeks, a threshold that Manhattan has already reached, they said Wednesday at a coronavirus briefing for Mayor Eric Adams. Officials are not expressing alarm, but they are preparing to increase the number of city-run testing sites from the 130 now operating, if necessary, and to distribute some six million free at-home tests.



Data shows that new infections have predominantly been among adults under 35, who are less likely to be hospitalized. If the subvariant spreads more widely among older people and in nursing homes, it could have more serious impact. Citywide, 83 percent of people 65 and older are fully vaccinated, and 56 percent have had one booster shot.

Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, an epidemiology professor at Columbia University, predicted there would be an “uptick” in hospitalizations but not of the magnitude seen earlier this year when Omicron packed emergency rooms, stretched hospital staffs nearly to the breaking point and killed more than 4,000 people.

“I don’t think this is going to be like the prior Omicron surge,” she said.



Health experts point to several factors that make them think that there will be fewer hospitalizations this time.

For one, some 800,000 New Yorkers have received a booster shot since the Omicron wave’s peak, and more doses of antiviral pills are flowing into the city than before, though the most effective one — Paxlovid — would quickly be in short supply if cases rise precipitously.

Epidemiologists also note that in addition to high vaccination rates, millions of New Yorkers — by some estimates, over 40 percent of the city — were infected by Omicron and now are likely to have strong protection against BA.2.

The potential for a new wave, coming just as many companies are calling employees back to offices and Mayor Adams is pushing for the city to return to a prepandemic normal, has left many New Yorkers unsure if this is a moment to show extra caution or to carry on. Many, but not all, vaccinated people experience relatively mild symptoms from Omicron, including BA.2.



New York City mobilized against the coronavirus as few other American cities did: from the 7 p.m. cheer of spring 2020, to widespread acceptance of indoor masking, to the most stringent vaccine requirements in the nation. But that collective effort has waned.

In interviews, New Yorkers voiced sharply varied views over how to navigate current conditions. Some questioned whether this was the right moment for the city to lower its guard. But others expressed confidence that after two years, four waves and nearly as many shots, they were sufficiently protected and ready to return to a prepandemic normal.

The Coronavirus Pandemic: Latest Updates
Updated
April 8, 2022, 5:02 a.m. ET5 hours ago
5 hours ago


Hong Kong, without ruling out mandatory testing, tries out a voluntary, at-home option.
Cases are spiking in New York City and Washington, D.C.
A federal appeals court upholds Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal workers.
“It’s confusing,” Catherine Jordan, 80, said, as she waited for a bus near the Queensbridge Houses, the public housing project in Queens where she has lived for about 60 years. “You don’t know what to do.”

Until someone in her circle gets sick, she said, she planned not to worry — and to keep going to family gatherings, church and her senior center. “If I worry, I wouldn’t come out,” she said.



Mayor Eric Adams lifted vaccine requirements for indoor dining just as cases began to tick up.

Tirsa Delate, a 28-year-old artist and server who lives in Bushwick, Brooklyn, described feeling “a sense of vagueness and uncertainty in terms of where we’re at collectively with Covid.” She expressed relief at not having to wear a mask at work, but added that the city should reinstate mask or vaccine requirements if cases rise to worrisome levels.

Still others said they conduct a quick risk assessment each time they step indoors — checking crowds, debating a mask, trying to recall the latest case numbers, wondering when it will ever end.



“We’re not eating indoors or going to bars or a lot of stuff we’d like to do,” Jim Cashman, 47, said Friday afternoon, as he waited with his family at a Covid testing van near Washington Square Park. An actor, Mr. Cashman said he was worried that if he tested positive, it would mean canceled work, not just for himself, but for co-workers, too.

As he spoke, his 8-year-old daughter, who had been circling on her shiny blue scooter, slowed down long enough to offer a gloomy prediction. “You don’t see people wearing their masks anymore,” she said. “So many people are going to have it.”

Several people who tested positive in recent days said this was their first case of Covid-19 — a trend supported by state data. Of the 8,692 New York City residents who officially tested positive from March 21 to March 27, only 692 were known to have been previously infected, according to the state Health Department.

Until she tested positive in late March, Nina Kulkarni, a New York City public-school teacher, had managed to avoid the virus despite teaching in-person classes since the fall of 2020. She doesn’t know where she was infected, but she had begun wearing her mask a little less often after the city lifted its mask mandate for school staff and students 5 and older on March 7.

She called on the city to reinstitute the mask mandates in schools, saying she has started to see absences going up. City data shows a slow but steady rise in public school Covid cases recently, to an average of 363 cases per day from about 150 per day three weeks ago.

“I did relax the mask, and I regret having done that,” she said. “We all want them to come off. I want them to come off. I hate them. But they do keep us safe.”

Even if this subvariant causes fewer hospitalizations, some experts agree more should be done to limit transmission, particularly given the risk of long Covid.



Dr. Denis Nash, an epidemiologist at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, said that the city’s decision to lift mask and vaccine mandates while the subvariant was spreading was “cavalier.”

“Our decision makers have embraced this paradigm that the only Covid crisis at this point is when the health care system becomes overwhelmed,” he said. “And anything between where we are now and that extremely bad scenario is something we are going to accept.”

Getting an accurate measure of the outbreak is increasingly difficult, as more people now use at-home tests — which are generally not included in the city’s official case counts. That means the actual number of people testing positive is probably significantly higher than the official daily count.

Noting that cases were increasing, Mayor Adams on Monday indicated an openness to reinstating mandates if necessary. “We are going to pivot and shift as Covid is pivoting and shifting,” he said.

He decided last Friday the city would maintain a mask mandate for preschoolers that it had planned to roll back. But he has not yet said he would bring back other school mask mandates or recently abandoned vaccine requirements, such as the need to show proof of vaccination at restaurants to dine indoors.

A broad workplace mandate that requires private employers in New York City to verify that their on-site workers have been vaccinated remains in effect, as do vaccine requirements for public sector employees. However, Mayor Adams opened a loophole last month when he lifted the requirement for professional athletes and performers based here, allowing the unvaccinated Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving to play home games.




While the growth in cases has been most apparent in Manhattan below 96th Street, about 40 of the city’s 180 ZIP codes now have positivity rates above 5 percent, including Long Island City, Queens; Greenpoint, Brooklyn; and Pelham Bay in the Bronx.

In Manhattan’s West Village, which had among the highest test positivity rates in the city last week, Lisa Landphair, 62, a psychotherapist, was sitting on her stoop Friday afternoon, reading a newspaper. She still wears a mask in stores, she said, adding that her main worry at this point is that she might pass the virus on to her husband.

“My partner is significantly older than I am, so I’m a little more concerned for him,” she explained.

But Steven Lightkep, a 29-year-old nurse who lives in Hell’s Kitchen, said he was ready to be done with the pandemic. “You’re going to get it if you’re going to get it, and if you’re not, you’re not,” he said as he walked to a neighborhood gym late last week. “I’m not going to stop living my life over it.”

[jo]

From the NYTimes --

BIG CITY

You Don’t Want to Wear a Mask? Do It for Hugh Jackman

Beginning in July, Broadway will no longer require audiences to mask up. Actors and theater workers aren’t loving the idea.




Hugh Jackman has tested positive for Covid twice during the run of “The Music Man.”Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Ginia Bellafante
By Ginia Bellafante


June 24, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET
Last month, in a much-celebrated moment of public disciplining during a talk back with the cast of “Company,” a woman in the audience who was told to please put her mask back on refused and then, mocking the directive, waved it in the air and placed it over her eyes. Up onstage, Patti LuPone was not having it and told her to get out. As if incubated in a lab manufacturing legend-resistant organisms — and unlike almost anyone else on the west side of Manhattan — this was a person immune to the ire of Patti LuPone. Yelling back defiantly, she proclaimed, “I pay your salary.” A member of the theater’s Covid safety staff proceeded to escort her out of the building.

In the actress’s view, the woman should have been ejected as soon as it was clear that she was not going to wear a mask. “It shouldn’t have been up to me,” she said. I called Ms. LuPone earlier this week to gauge her feelings on the theater world’s changing Covid protocols. On Tuesday, the Broadway League, a trade association, announced that owners and operators of all Broadway’s 41 theaters would put a mask-optional policy into effect beginning on July 1, just as the 2022-23 season was kicking off.

In a written statement, the League’s president, Charlotte St. Martin, did not even pretend to ground the decision in statistics. “Millions of people enjoyed the unique magic of Broadway by watching the 75th Tony Award Ceremony recently,” she began, overlooking the fact that “watching” typically takes place at home.



“Are they afraid that they’re losing audiences?” Ms. LuPone wondered, pointing out that masks were still required of casts and crew backstage. “I don’t know.” Unions, nearly a dozen of which are involved in governing the theater industry, have pushed for strict safety rules since the beginning of the pandemic.



After rising steadily for a decade, Broadway earnings have taken an obvious beating over the past two years. Grosses for the week ending June 19 fell to $29 million from a prepandemic peak late in 2019 of nearly twice that. Covid outbreaks among performers have stymied productions, further complicating things. A few weeks ago, Hugh Jackman, currently starring in “The Music Man’,’ tested positive for Covid for a second time, leaving the role of professor Harold Hill to Max Clayton.

Even though case rates have fallen recently after a late spring surge, the seven-day average in New York City is still more than 10 times what it was last June. Regardless, Broadway theaters — old, windowless and often poorly ventilated — present particular vulnerabilities to those working in them, especially actors who are communicating intimately with one another onstage, unmasked.

Sam Rockwell, who is starring in “American Buffalo” at Circle in the Square, is one of several actors I spoke with who is unnerved by the change in policy. “We’re doing theater in the round,” he told me. “The other day I had a guy cough four feet in front of me.” He and the rest of the cast and crew test constantly. “We test in order to have the privilege to take the mask off. We earn the privilege to take the mask off and spit saliva on the stage,” he said. “I don’t know if it occurs to the audience that they’re protecting the actors onstage. If someone is mad because they have to wear a mask, they have to know that we are testing everyday.”


It is hard to see who benefits from removal, given that people who go to the theater tend to skew older and have traveled to New York from somewhere else. Moreover, anyone who has held back from seeing shows out of a fear of Covid is unlikely to spend hundreds of dollars to do so now that strictures have loosened. “Just looking at it pragmatically, this is not serving the audience,” Mr. Rockwell said. “It’s about, Do you want to see Hugh Jackman in the show? Do you want to go see that show without Patti? Because let me tell you, if she gets Covid, she’s not in the show for 10 days.”

Last week, six out of the 11 cast members of the acclaimed Tracy Letts play, “The Minutes,” were out sick. One of them, Blair Brown, now in her 70s, has been especially cautious over the past two years, staying away from restaurants and public transportation. She did not understand how the League would periodically reassess the need for masks — which it has committed to doing — considering that there is no system for tracking transmission in theaters.

While it might be hard for the public to feel sympathetic toward actors, who seem in every way swimming in privilege, most who appear on the New York stage do not make up the ranks of the wealthy and well known. At the same time, according to the League’s own demographic study three years ago, the average annual household income of the Broadway theatergoer is $261,000. If you don’t want to wear a mask for Hugh Jackman, you might want to do it for the actor in the chorus who is making a lot less than that — the one with two lines, who is headed to bed early to teach a barre class at Equinox the next morning.

Ginia Bellafante has served as a reporter, critic and, since 2011, as the Big City columnist. She began her career at The Times as a fashion critic, and has also been a television critic. She previously worked at Time magazine. @ginianyt

[jo]

[jo]

Can you believe some NYTimes readers actually believe it was Hugh who demanded it

It was obviously done as click bait ( someone did note that... because many had the "dumb" impression that it was done to please "well-paid" actors like Hugh Jackman).

One even replied to my comment saying that HJ is not just well-paid (and that I was one of those who paid it -- taking it from the Patti Lupone encounter with a non-masker) and that it is not worth it because this revival is just one old, old musical...That Robert Preston is the Music Man.

I replied to him - but I am awaiting approval before it shows up --

but I did say that Hugh's name was used as click-bait and that if he hasn't seen it - maybe he should...as the show is the current box office king on Broadway and people do care about it!

I wonder if Hugh has even seen the NY Times article


Jo

[jo]

Now that Sutton has also been re-infected (and maybe also other cast members in other shows) -- will the Broadway League review its revised mask-up policy once more?

JO

[njr]

My daughter texted me that they were in the E.R. with my granddaughter who had a fever of 104 and threw up. Turns out she has Covid! (She is only 21 months old and wasn’t able to get the vaccine until just recently and my daughter hesitated on it - neither parents have gotten boosters either!) She was able to come home last night (same day) and her fever is down. She’s not coughing, but has stuffy nose. Hopefully it will be like a bad cold.
I’m getting my 2nd booster next month in preparation for my trip to the U.K. in August. 1st booster was last Oct.

[hughmanity]

Jun 27, 2022 14:36:49 GMT -5 njr said:

My daughter texted me that they were in the E.R. with my granddaughter who had a fever of 104 and threw up. Turns out she has Covid! (She is only 21 months old and wasn’t able to get the vaccine until just recently and my daughter hesitated on it - neither parents have gotten boosters either!) She was able to come home last night (same day) and her fever is down. She’s not coughing, but has stuffy nose. Hopefully it will be like a bad cold.
I’m getting my 2nd booster next month in preparation for my trip to the U.K. in August. 1st booster was last Oct.

Sorry to hear.  It is  very scary.  Just to reassure you, my grandson had it at that same age (he is 26 months now)  Also had initial fever and then was just like a bad cold.   He is fine now.  Wishing her a speedy recovery.  

[njr]

Jun 27, 2022 17:45:10 GMT -5 hughmanity said:

Jun 27, 2022 14:36:49 GMT -5 njr said:

My daughter texted me that they were in the E.R. with my granddaughter who had a fever of 104 and threw up. Turns out she has Covid! (She is only 21 months old and wasn’t able to get the vaccine until just recently and my daughter hesitated on it - neither parents have gotten boosters either!) She was able to come home last night (same day) and her fever is down. She’s not coughing, but has stuffy nose. Hopefully it will be like a bad cold.
I’m getting my 2nd booster next month in preparation for my trip to the U.K. in August. 1st booster was last Oct.

Sorry to hear.  It is  very scary.  Just to reassure you, my grandson had it at that same age (he is 26 months now)  Also had initial fever and then was just like a bad cold.   He is fine now.  Wishing her a speedy recovery.  

Thank you! My daughter said she had another fever of 102 at 4am, but it has come down. She has no symptoms but her husband has a scratchy throat. They have to test themselves for Covid tomorrow and then again on Friday. I’m going to drop off a couple of the free tests I got from the government (they had already bought 2 tests)

[njr]

My son-in-law tested positive for Covid yesterday (had fever of 102) My daughter is still okay. My granddaughter is better.

[mamaleh]

Nancy, I hope all members of your family recover quickly and completely.

Ellen

[njr]

Jun 30, 2022 22:54:44 GMT -5 mamaleh said:

Nancy, I hope all members of your family recover quickly and completely.

Ellen

Thanks Ellen!