Unreal, uncertain and mostly silent: life in the centre of New York’s coronavirus storm

‘How are you bearing up?’ ‘Is everyone terrified?’ ‘What’s the mood?’ These are the questions concerned family and friends are kindly asking about New York City which, according to my armchair epidemiology, is about ten days behind Italy and ten days ahead of Britain. It would be reckless to describe things as calm, not with a New Yorker dying every seven (?!) minutes, and refrigerated trucks parked ominously outside hospitals. But I sense no mass panic. Life, of a sort, still goes on. People run, dogs are walked, post is delivered, Amazon arrives, and the shelves are stocked with food. The absence of cars without the presence of snow is a novelty, as are the nods of camaraderie. Those who venture out mainly respect the cordon sanitaire — except for joggers; always the joggers — and the pavements are spotted with blue surgical gloves. But the inkblot of infection is spreading here like it’s spreading around the world. Most of my friends are healthy and hunkered; a few are sick; some are in hospital; one has died. So, what does New York feel like? Well, to me it feels like dawn on New Year’s Day — unreal, uncertain, mostly silent (except for the sirens), and above all pensive.

Nearly all of my New York friends with second homes have quit the city. Fair enough. Who wouldn’t want to ride out armageddon on the beach? (Except, perhaps, anyone who’s read Nevil Shute’s On the Beach.) It’s human nature to flee, but flee where? Especially when the virus might be in the car with you, like the strangler in the trunk. And then, when you arrive at your exclusive hideaway… you’re surrounded by hundreds of your New York neighbours. If we believe the New York Post, this exodus of the 1 per cent is causing ‘class warfare’ in the Hamptons, as locals see their food and healthcare resources diluted by blow-ins.