A Month of Coronavirus in New York City: See the Hardest Hit Areas

The coronavirus has ravaged all of New York City, closing schools, emptying streets and turning stadiums into makeshift hospitals. But data made public by city health officials on Wednesday suggests it is hitting low-income neighborhoods the hardest.

83

104

362

253

638

255

397

108

470

Coronavirus cases by ZIP code

332

BRONX

208

386

264

376

25

306

377

255

308

367

355

302

267

116

227

217

50

10

100

500

1,000

337

106

304

176

170

55

174

126

252

204

290

147

162

110

MANHATTAN

212

59

104

189

190

27

105

211

134

187

121

85

378

331

104

49

144

119

64

116

123

QUEENS

45

492

213

113

947

113

148

121

13

364

288

85

222

166

101

831

101

140

161

318

181

96

106

181

319

68

156

112

418

122

164

195

21

250

405

601

26

163

149

17

25

184

329

293

425

155

216

245

204

151

182

202

260

16

182

117

130

162

183

225

127

358

173

100

350

223

394

332

261

178

267

254

211

162

85

343

85

344

350

264

416

97

771

106

61

386

175

209

631

534

BROOKLYN

86

101

364

289

316

436

251

346

452

178

110

348

STATEN ISLAND

133

143

278

25

146

336

170

67

By The New York Times·Source: New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

During the first month of the outbreak in the city — the epicenter of America’s coronavirus crisis — many of the neighborhoods with the most confirmed virus cases were in areas with the lowest median incomes, the data shows. The biggest hotspots included communities in the South Bronx and Western Queens.

The data, collected by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, offers the first snapshot of an outbreak that infected more than 40,000 and killed more than 1,000 in the city in its first month.

The coronavirus has spread into virtually every corner of the city, and some wealthier neighborhoods have been overrun with cases, including some parts of Manhattan and Staten Island. But that may be because of the availability of testing in those areas. Nineteen of the 20 neighborhoods with the lowest percentage of positive tests have been in wealthy ZIP codes.

The patterns are even more striking when analyzing the data on people who visited the city’s 53 emergency rooms with the “flulike symptoms” that are a hallmark of the coronavirus.

Over all, nearly three times as many people with “flulike symptoms” like fever, cough or sore throat visited city emergency rooms this March when compared with the same month in previous years.

Over the last four years, there were on average 9,250 flu-related visits to emergency rooms in March; this March, the number tripled to about 30,000.

Flu-Related E.R. Visits by ZIP Code

Circles are sized by the number of flu-related visits by residents in each ZIP code.

Average of March

visits in 2016-19

March 2020

By The New York Times·Note: Data shows the rate for E.R. visits per 1,000 people. Source: New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

The increases in flu-related emergency room visits varied widely by neighborhood, with many of the surges occurring among residents of neighborhoods where the typical household income is less than the city median of about $60,000, the data shows.

In Corona, Queens, for example, the median household income is about $48,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That neighborhood is near the Elmhurst Hospital Center, which Mayor Bill de Blasio has cited as the hardest hit hospital in the city. Doctors in the overwhelmed emergency room there have described the conditions as “apocalyptic.”

Visits in Central Harlem were up 220 percent.

BRONX

Corona saw nearly 1,000 more flu-related visits than average.

Where Flu-Related E.R. Visits Have Increased

MANHATTAN

Circles are sized by the increase in the number of flu-related E.R. visits by residents in each ZIP code for the month of March in 2020, compared with 2016-19.

• Yellow circles indicate ZIP codes in which the median household income is less than the city median, which is about $60,000.

• Blue circles indicate areas with higher median incomes.

QUEENS

On the north shore of Staten Island, flu-related E.R. visits doubled.

BROOKLYN

STATEN ISLAND

By The New York Times·Data shows the rate for E.R. visits per 1,000 people. Source: New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

Dr. Jessica Justman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University in Manhattan, said the numbers were most likely because many immigrants and low-income residents live with large families in small apartments and cannot isolate at home.

“I think unfortunately this is showing how devastating that can be,” Dr. Justman said.

In New York, experts said, a vast majority of people visiting emergency rooms with flu-like symptoms probably have the coronavirus.

“We’ve actually stopped testing for the flu because it’s all coronavirus,” said Bruce Farber, chief of infectious disease at North Shore University Hospital, part of Northwell Health, a network of 23 hospitals throughout the state. “Almost anybody who has an influenza illness right now almost certainly has coronavirus.”

Many of the emergency rooms with the biggest increases in patients who have flulike symptoms are in Queens, the borough that has the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases. There are about 616 confirmed cases for every 100,000 residents in Queens, and 584 confirmed cases for every 100,000 residents in the Bronx. That’s far more per 100,000 than the 376 in Manhattan and 453 in Brooklyn.

With infections across all five boroughs, New York has far more confirmed cases than any other city in the United States.

Coronavirus cases

Coronavirus deaths

3,000

150,000

100,000

2,000

All U.S.

cases

All U.S. deaths

50,000

1,000

New York City

March 1

March 31

March 1

March 31

By The New York Times·Sources: New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene; New York Times database of coronavirus cases in the U.S.

The emergency room data also tracks admissions — the number of E.R. visitors who end up treated at a hospital. On that metric, the data shows that older visitors are far more likely to be admitted than younger visitors.

There is a simple reason for that difference, according to the hospital officials and experts: The coronavirus seems to take a bigger toll on older people, as well as those with compromised immune systems.

“I don’t think that infection rates are necessarily different between older and younger people,” said Dr. Isaac Weisfuse, the former deputy head for disease control at the city’s Department of Health. “Elderly have worse clinical outcomes than younger patients, and may have more pre-existing conditions.”

E.R. Admissions for Flulike Illness and Pneumonia

Per 100,000 people

Ages 0-17

18-44

45-64

65-74

75+

30

15

Jan.

Jan.

Jan.

Jan.

Jan.

March

March

March

March

March

By The New York Times·Source: New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

Over all, more than 8,500 people have been hospitalized with the coronavirus in New York City. That number is expected to soar in the coming weeks.

But officials are hopeful that the social distancing restrictions put in place by the state may have finally started to at least slow the spread of the coronavirus. They have noted that the number of hospitalizations is now doubling every six days, instead of every two or three days.

The city’s data shows a slight decline in emergency room admissions over last weekend, and then continuing increases this week.

Dr. Denis Nash, an epidemiologist at the City University of New York’s School of Public Health, said it was still too soon to tell whether the social distancing restrictions were working.

“It may be too soon to say what’s really going on here,” he said. “I just hope it means something good.”

Coronavirus Cases by Neighborhood

ZIP code	Neighborhood	Total cases	Cases per 1,000 people
11368	West Queens	947	9
11373	West Queens	831	9
11219	Borough Park	771	9
10467	Bronx Park and Fordham	638	7
11230	Borough Park	631	8
11211	Greenpoint	601	6
11204	Borough Park	534	7
11372	West Queens	492	8
10469	Northeast Bronx	470	7
10314	Mid-Island	452	5
11691	Rockaways	436	7
11385	West Central Queens	425	4
11375	West Central Queens	418	6
11236	Canarsie and Flatlands	416	5
11432	Jamaica	405	7
10468	Bronx Park and Fordham	397	6
11213	Central Brooklyn	394	6
11210	Flatbush	386	6
10453	Central Bronx	386	5
11370	West Queens	378	12
10462	Southeast Bronx	377	5
10461	Southeast Bronx	376	8
10452	High Bridge and Morrisania	367	5
11234	Canarsie and Flatlands	364	4
11377	West Queens	364	5
10466	Northeast Bronx	362	5
11434	Jamaica	358	6
10456	High Bridge and Morrisania	355	4
11218	Borough Park	350	5
11208	East New York and New Lots	350	4
11235	Southern Brooklyn	348	5
11223	Southern Brooklyn	346	5
11226	Flatbush	344	4
11203	Flatbush	343	5
10451	High Bridge and Morrisania	337	8
10312	South Shore	336	6
10458	Bronx Park and Fordham	332	4
11207	East New York and New Lots	332	4
11369	West Queens	331	10
11206	Bushwick and Williamsburg	329	4
11374	West Central Queens	319	8
11367	Central Queens	318	8
11229	Southern Brooklyn	316	4
10032	Inwood and Washington Heights	308	5
10457	Central Bronx	306	5
10473	Southeast Bronx	304	6
10472	Southeast Bronx	302	5
11435	Jamaica	293	5
10029	East Harlem	290	4
10304	Stapleton and St. George	289	8
10016	Gramercy Park and Murray Hill	288	6
10306	South Shore	278	6
10465	Southeast Bronx	267	7
11225	Flatbush	267	5
10033	Inwood and Washington Heights	264	5
11220	Sunset Park	264	3
11413	Southeast Queens	261	7
11221	Bushwick and Williamsburg	260	4
10460	Central Bronx	255	5
10475	Northeast Bronx	255	6
11212	Central Brooklyn	254	4
10463	Kingsbridge and Riverdale	253	4
10025	Upper West Side	252	3
11214	Southwest Brooklyn	251	3
10002	Lower East Side	250	4
11412	Jamaica	245	7
10459	Hunts Point and Mott Haven	227	5
11233	Central Brooklyn	225	3
11420	Southwest Queens	223	5
10011	Chelsea and Clinton	222	5
10031	Inwood and Washington Heights	217	4
11418	Southwest Queens	216	6
11355	North Queens	213	3
10128	Upper East Side	212	4
10021	Upper East Side	211	5
11422	Southeast Queens	211	7
11209	Southwest Brooklyn	209	4
10040	Inwood and Washington Heights	208	5
10024	Upper West Side	204	4
11201	Northwest Brooklyn	204	4
11421	Southwest Queens	202	5
11379	West Central Queens	195	6
10023	Upper West Side	190	4
10028	Upper East Side	189	4
10019	Chelsea and Clinton	187	5
11237	Bushwick and Williamsburg	184	4
11238	Central Brooklyn	183	4
11419	Southwest Queens	182	4
11205	Northwest Brooklyn	182	4
10009	Lower East Side	181	4
11427	Southeast Queens	181	8
11215	Northwest Brooklyn	178	3
10305	Stapleton and St. George	178	5
10455	Hunts Point and Mott Haven	176	5
10301	Stapleton and St. George	175	5
10454	Hunts Point and Mott Haven	174	5
11417	Southwest Queens	173	6
10027	Central Harlem	170	3
10309	South Shore	170	6
11365	Central Queens	166	4
11423	Jamaica	164	6
11429	Southeast Queens	163	6
11414	Southwest Queens	162	6
11357	North Queens	162	5
11216	Central Brooklyn	162	3
10003	Lower East Side	161	3
10075	Upper East Side	160	8
11378	West Queens	156	5
11433	Jamaica	155	5
11411	Southeast Queens	151	8
11415	Southwest Queens	149	8
11101	Northwest Queens	148	5
10035	East Harlem	147	5
10308	South Shore	146	5
11106	Northwest Queens	144	4
11694	Rockaways	143	7
10014	Greenwich Village and Soho	140	5
11354	North Queens	134	3
11224	Southern Brooklyn	133	3
11217	Northwest Brooklyn	130	4
11231	Northwest Brooklyn	127	4
10026	Central Harlem	126	4
10022	Gramercy Park and Murray Hill	123	4
10013	Greenwich Village and Soho	122	5
10065	Upper East Side	121	5
11004	Southeast Queens	121	8
11358	North Queens	119	4
11416	Southwest Queens	117	5
10036	Chelsea and Clinton	116	5
10039	Central Harlem	116	5
10001	Chelsea and Clinton	113	5
11364	Northeast Queens	113	4
11428	Southeast Queens	112	6
11356	North Queens	110	5
11692	Rockaways	110	6
10037	Central Harlem	109	6
10034	Inwood and Washington Heights	108	3
10303	Port Richmond	106	5
10030	Central Harlem	106	4
11366	Central Queens	106	8
11102	Northwest Queens	105	4
10471	Kingsbridge and Riverdale	104	5
11105	Northwest Queens	104	3
11103	Northwest Queens	104	3
10010	Gramercy Park and Murray Hill	101	3
11228	Southwest Brooklyn	101	3
11426	Southeast Queens	101	5
11436	Jamaica	100	5
10310	Port Richmond	97	5
11222	Greenpoint	96	3
11693	Rockaways	86	7
11361	Northeast Queens	85	4
11104	Northwest Queens	85	4
11232	Sunset Park	85	4
11239	Canarsie and Flatlands	85	7
10470	Northeast Bronx	83	6
10038	Lower Manhattan	76	4
10012	Greenwich Village and Soho	68	3
10307	South Shore	67	5
10018	Chelsea and Clinton	66	7
11362	Northeast Queens	64	4
10302	Port Richmond	61	4
11360	North Queens	59	4
10474	Hunts Point and Mott Haven	55	5
10044	Upper East Side	49	5
10017	Gramercy Park and Murray Hill	45	3
11363	Northeast Queens	27	4
10007	Lower Manhattan	26	4
10005	Lower Manhattan	25	3
10464	Southeast Bronx	25	6
11697	Rockaways	25	8
10280	Lower Manhattan	17	2
10004	Lower Manhattan	16	6
10006	Lower Manhattan	6	2

By The New York Times·Source: New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

Coronavirus Spreads Amid Supply Shortages, Stay-at-Home Orders and Sobering Economics. UPDATES

The coronavirus continued its punishing march on Tuesday as more United States governors ordered their citizens to stay at home, more states pleaded for rapidly diminishing stocks of emergency supplies, and more experts predicted that the devastating economic effects of the pandemic could stretch into next year.

In Florida, the state’s Republican governor belatedly issued a stay-at-home order for residents — but only after a morning telephone call with President Trump, who later said he still had no plans for a similar national directive.

In Washington, Democrats and Republicans in Congress, as well as President Trump, are increasingly looking toward enacting a huge new infrastructure plan that could create thousands of jobs.

And in New York, where hundreds of new deaths pushed the tristate region’s toll past 2,300, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo pleaded for a supplies for his overwhelmed hospitals and desperate health care workers. “Really, the only hope for a state at this point is the federal government’s capacity to deliver,” Mr. Cuomo said.

The problem is that the federal government has nearly emptied its emergency stockpile of protective medical supplies like masks, gowns and gloves, according to a senior administration official, and some states desperate for much-needed ventilators received them only to discover that the machines did not work.

More bad news was expected Thursday. The Department of Labor reported last week that more than three million people filed for unemployment from March 15 to March 21, the largest single-week increase in American history.

This Thursday’s number, which reflects claims filed last week, could rise to 5.6 million, according to an analysis of Google search data by the economists Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham of Yale and Aaron Sojourner of the University of Minnesota.

If these forecasts are accurate, there will be as many claims in two weeks as in the first six months of the Great Recession.

At the same time, fears are growing that the downturn could be far more punishing and long lasting than initially feared — potentially enduring into next year, and even beyond.

“This is already shaping up as the deepest dive on record for the global economy for over 100 years,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a Harvard economist. “Everything depends on how long it lasts, but if this goes on for a long time, it’s certainly going to be the mother of all financial crises.”

U.S. coronavirus deaths surge past 4,600 as officials start to compare struggle with Italy’s outbreak.

Coronavirus deaths in the United States passed 4,600 Wednesday as Vice President Pence issued an ominous warning that America’s situation is most comparable to Italy’s struggle with the virus, which has pushed that nation’s hospitals to capacity and has left more than 13,000 people dead despite a weeks-long lockdown.

The prediction was among a fresh batch of reminders that as the United States makes its agonizing march toward the peak of the covid-19 pandemic, each day will bring more suffering than the last.

In total, the nation added at least 900 virus-related deaths to its overall tally on Wednesday, as the number of confirmed coronavirus infections rose to more than 211,000. State officials warned their hospitals might soon run short on needed masks, gowns and ventilators, and Homeland Security officials acknowledged the federal government’s emergency stockpile of supplies also was nearly exhausted.

New York again absorbed the most pain, tallying 391 new deaths on Wednesday, bringing its total to 1,941. It also added more than 7,900 newly confirmed infections, for a total of 83,712.

Trump, though, also seemed to turn his attention to a separate matter Wednesday. At the beginning of his regular coronavirus briefing, the president — alongside his attorney general, defense secretary and other officials — announced he was expanding counternarcotics operations in the Western Hemisphere and sending more ships and planes to the U.S. Southern Command.

The federal government’s supply of masks, gloves and gowns is nearly gone.

The federal government has nearly emptied its emergency stockpile of protective medical supplies as state governors continue to plea for protective gear for desperate hospital workers, according to a senior administration official.

The official said the Federal Emergency Management Agency has delivered more than 11.6 million N95 masks, 5.2 million face shields, 22 million gloves and 7,140 ventilators, exhausting the emergency stockpile.

While there is no more personal protective equipment in the stockpile left over for the states, the senior official said the administration still has more than 9,400 ventilators ready to be deployed.

The dwindling resources have forced the federal government to compete with states and private companies for valuable medical gear across the world. Governors, meanwhile, have continued to try to find ways to scavenge medical supplies for hospital workers exposed to the worsening pandemic.

“Really, the only hope for a state at this point is the federal government’s capacity to deliver,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said Wednesday, going on to discuss the powers that the Defense Production Act, a Korean War-era law, gives the president to procure vital equipment.

Mr. Cuomo noted that while much of the discussion about the act had been about making ventilators, which are complex to build, it could also be used for other gear

“Look, you have a shortfall on gowns,” he said. “American companies can make gowns — they’re not like wedding gowns, they’re like paper gowns. Make the gowns, make the gloves, make the masks. You know, why are we running out of these basic supplies?”

The mayor warned that April would be bad. Now it’s here.

On Wednesday, with Mr. de Blasio’s crucial date just four days away and city data putting the number of virus-related deaths at 1,374, he went into detail about the supplies the city still needed to contend with the coming wave:

3.3 million N95 masks, which protect health care workers from exposure to the virus

2.1 million surgical masks

100,000 isolation gowns

400 additional ventilators

To help ensure that supplies go where they are needed, Mr. de Blasio said that James P. O’Neill, the former police commissioner who is now an executive with Visa, was returning to oversee operations and logistics related to the virus outbreak.

Mr. de Blasio said New York would continue to have a great need for supplies well after Sunday. By the end of April, he estimated, the health care system would need 65,000 additional hospital beds to accommodate new virus patients, as well as the people to staff them.

To meet the expected demand, the city’s public hospital system plans to convert all of its facilities to intensive care units, officials said, adding that supplies and personnel were crucial to increasing the number of I.C.U. beds.

Patients who do not have the virus will be sent to large-scale temporary hospitals, like the one set up at the Javits Convention Center, or to hotels that are being converted into temporary medical facilities. So far, the city had secured 10,000 beds from 20 hotels, officials said.

“This goal is within reach,” Mr. de Blasio said. “It’s going to take a herculean effort, but I’m confident it can be reached.”

The numbers of people hospitalized, on ventilators, testing positive or dead of the virus have all begun to increase a little more slowly in recent days. But they were still increasing every day, and officials expected it would be several weeks before the virus began to ebb.

The governor said all city playgrounds would close.

At his briefing, Mr. Cuomo expressed frustration with those who continued to ignore social-distancing guidelines in New York City.

He insisted that the city’s police officers had “to get more aggressive” in enforcing the rules. Mr. Cuomo said that he was prepared to legally require social distancing if necessary, but that it was absurd that  even had to consider that.

“How reckless and irresponsible and selfish for people not to do it on their own,” he said. “I mean what else do you have to know? What else do you have to hear? Who else has to die for you to understand you have a responsibility in this?”

As a start, he said, all of the city’s playgrounds would be shut down.

More people in homeless shelters are getting the virus.

Coronavirus continues to spread through New York City’s homeless shelters, where it has now infected over 120 people and killed five men, city officials said Wednesday.

People have tested positive in 68 different shelters. The virus has circulated most quickly in shelters for single adults, where dormitory-style quarters and shared bathrooms leave little room for distancing.

The city has set up four locations to isolate sick people and those who have been exposed to them. As of Tuesday, 190 people were at those locations and  38 people were in the hospital. Another 13 living on the street or in unstable housing had tested positive.


The federal government has a ventilator stockpile, with one hitch: Thousands do not work.

President Trump has repeatedly assured Americans that the federal government is holding 10,000 ventilators in reserve to ship to the hardest-hit hospitals around the nation as they struggle to keep the most critically ill patients alive.

But what federal officials have neglected to mention is that thousands more of the lifesaving devices are unavailable, after the contract to maintain the government’s stockpile lapsed late last summer, and a contracting dispute meant that a new firm did not begin its work until late January. By then, the coronavirus crisis was already underway.

The revelation came in response to inquiries to the Department of Health and Human Services after state officials reported that some of the ventilators they received were not operational, stoking speculation that the administration had not kept up with the task of maintaining the stockpile.

Democrats seek Sept. 11-style commission on Trump’s coronavirus response.

House Democrats on Wednesday called for the creation of an independent panel to investigate the Trump administration’s response to the novel coronavirus — once the pandemic subsides.

The panel would be akin to the one that was formed to examine the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2011.

“It is clear that we, as a nation, are at another inflection point,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement announcing he had introduced a bill to form a coronavirus commission. “Americans today will again demand a full accounting of how prepared we were and how we responded to this global public health emergency. Americans will need answers on how our government can work better to prevent a similar crisis from happening again.”

Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday that he was also drafting legislation modeled to create a 9/11-style commission that would investigate once the country had moved past the coronavirus.”

“After Pearl Harbor and 9/11, we looked at what went wrong to learn from our mistakes,” Mr. Schiff wrote on Twitter. “Once we’ve recovered, we need a nonpartisan commission to review our response and how we can better prepare for the next pandemic.”

The mayor of Los Angeles asks all residents to cover their faces when in public.

Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles on Wednesday urged all the city’s residents to use homemade face coverings when in public or interacting in public.

“This isn’t an excuse to suddenly all go out,” he said during a news conference, “but when you have to go out, we are recommending that we use nonmedical grade masks, or facial coverings.”

Mr. Garcetti stressed that Angelinos use cloth face coverings, and not surgical and N95 masks, which are reserved for first-responders and medical workers. “This could save or cost a doctor or nurse their life, so we need to protect them,” he said.

The directive, he said, was in line with guidance from Gov. Gavin Newsom and Dr. Barbara Ferrer, the director of Los Angeles County’s Public Health Department.

In a tweet, Mr. Garcetti also referred to new data that suggests many who are infected are not symptomatic.

As of Wednesday, California had 9,599 cases of coronavirus and 206 deaths. Los Angeles County had 3,518 cases and 65 deaths.

UNIQUE HORROR SHOW: Trump’s a Disaster. Here’s Why Americans Are Rallying Around His Coronavirus Response.

Biden’s main job is to show that he is and that we can be a lot better than this; to convince people that the coronavirus has been a disaster that Trump has made far, far worse.

MICHAEL TOMASKY, DAILY BEAST

How in the world does Donald Trump have an approval rating for his handling of the coronavirus above 10 percent? It’s unfathomable. OK, maybe 10 is a little extreme. But 25, 28. That is, his normal approval rating has been in the 43 range, and he’s screwed this up so obviously and completely that he should surely have lost 15 points or so.

But here he is, up near 50. And now, at least according to Sunday’s Washington Post-ABC poll, almost caught up to Joe Biden?

You might say that we all have bigger things to worry about, but on the scale of potential disasters that loom before us, Trump’s re-election rates pretty high.

At least some of this is the inevitable and much-discussed rally-round-the-president effect. You want to exhale? Here, read this. Other world leaders have seen similar bounces, most of them a good bit higher than Trump.

Boris Johnson’s approval number rose 15 points from March 11 to March 24 (he announced that he contracted the disease after that, on March 27). He was screwing it up during that time almost as royally as Trump was. Angela Merkel went up 9 points. Emmanuel Macron 7 points. Justin Trudeau 11 points. Scott Morrison 13 points. Trump, according to this Morning Consult roundup, went up just 2 points.

That’s the reassuring news. At the same time, however, everybody didn’t go up in that poll. Shinzo Abe and Jair Bolsonaro dropped a couple points. So the rally-round effect isn’t inevitable, but it’s pretty close to universal, so it isn’t just Trump.

Beyond the rally-round effect, there’s also something I’d call the news-laundering effect. Trump has benefited from this since the day he became president, or probably the day he announced his candidacy. In a nutshell, it’s this.

The conventions of American journalism simply don’t allow for, say, The New York Times to write a lead like the following: “At a plainly frightening rally last night in Charlotte, President Trump told at least 58 documented lies and went off on totally bizarre jags about his political foes’ sex lives and mental states and said dozens of things that were far beneath the dignity of the office and otherwise embarrassed himself and the United States of America.”

Instead they write things like: “At a raucous rally last night in Charlotte, President Trump seemed to wade into murky waters as he alleged…” and so on. They can’t write what’s obviously true. It’s not “objective.” Thus, Trump’s actual words are laundered through the conventions of normal journalism, and he comes out looking far less deranged and dangerous than he is.

Saturday, Trump announced, out of the blue, that he probably wanted to quarantine New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. It wasn’t clear what he meant, or what army he’d use to do that, but it was an insane thing for a president to just put out there. By Saturday evening, he’d taken it back. That is very hard for a newspaper, or anyone else, to cover. How in the hell do you cover that for the next day’s paper? The man is simply making it up as he goes along, and with our lives and livings on the line.

I noticed the other day that nightly news viewership is way up since the virus hit. Now, think about how the nightly news broadcasts must help launder Trump. I’m not saying they’re pro-Trump or anything like that. It’s just that these broadcasts are going to use about eight seconds of Trump tape, and it’s in their nature to try to use the sanest eight second of Trump tape they’ve got. They’ll report on the controversies around Trump’s actions, but they’re just not going to make him look like the blithering idiot and petty martinet that he is.

I think there are some other reasons. A lot of people probably default toward thinking this was something Trump couldn’t control and no one saw coming; just “one of those things.” That’s nonsense of course, and Trump and his people know it, which is why they’re trying to block that devastating ad that tells people the truth about his insanely irresponsible behavior. And Trump wasn’t the only one whose initial response was lacking. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio spent a long time telling people to “go about their lives.” He’s not the president, and Trump is far worse, but maybe some people don’t see Trump’s failures here as unique.