But their employees - they don’t want to work,” said Tu. “The supermarkets, they don’t want to close. “Because the supermarket is so busy, they have to always come in contact with the customer a lot,” Tu said. Stores installed Plexiglass sheets at cash registers to protect workers from aerated germs. Seeing the destruction COVID-19 was wreaking in China, Flushing grocery store managers were already taking precautions by February to protect employees and shoppers by distributing masks at the front of the store or requiring mask wearing, said Peter Tu, the executive director of the Flushing Chinese Business Association. “A lot of the Asian supermarkets that I went into started requiring people to do it in order to enter the supermarket,” she added.Īlthough New York deems grocery stores are essential businesses, allowing them to stay open during the shutdown, Chinese grocery stores in Flushing closed their doors in late March. “We’ve been wearing masks way before the city told us to do face coverings,” she said. Weeks before city and state officials urged people in public to cover their face and nose to curb the spread of COVID-19, it wasn’t uncommon to walk around Flushing and see people in masks, said Crystal. The pair even purchased alcohol to make their own hand sanitizer.įamily in Hong Kong had warned Crystal, 30, and her mother to take the virus seriously. They had already stocked up on Lysol and had a disinfectant routine. Warnings from Back ‘Home’īy mid-March, Crystal, who did not want her last name published, and her 67-year old mother had already gotten into the habit of wearing masks and gloves whenever they left their Flushing apartment. “A lot of Chinese people in New York City were probably more aware of the situation earlier,” said Kezhen Fei, a senior biostatician with PRA Health and Science, a research group.Ĭity data confirms that Asian residents have the lowest rate of non-hospitalized cases. In Flushing, locals suspect that early warnings from family and news reports in East Asia, coupled with preventive measures and the shuttering of businesses, lie behind the neighborhood’s low COVID-19 infection rate. Andrew Cuomo ordered it April 15, she made her husband work from home days before his accounting company required its workers to do so. In addition to wearing masks well before Gov. “I knew we’d be hit hard if America didn’t prepare,” she said. “I was very aware when the virus first started in China,” said a Flushing nurse, originally from China, who spoke with THE CITY on the condition of anonymity. The divide between Corona and Flushing also highlights a striking possibility: that early measures many Flushing residents, workers and businesses took to protect themselves - during crucial weeks while city and state government held back - may have made a difference. ![]() ![]() The divergent impact of the virus in two similar neighborhoods suggests that low incomes and poor access to health care alone do not predicate the virus’s damage, public health experts say. Meanwhile, the rate of test-confirmed positive cases of the virus among Flushing residents has remained among the lowest in the five boroughs. ![]() Yet when it comes to COVID-19, the differences between the neighborhoods couldn’t be more stark.Ĭorona emerged as the early epicenter of the outbreak in New York City and shows no sign of slowing down. And almost half of apartments and houses in both areas have more than one occupant per room, the Census definition of crowded. Residents of both places typically have household income below the Queens median and a similar share of people who lack health insurance, as measured by the U.S. Members and sponsors make THE CITY possible.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |