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The cancellations
started hitting my in-
box first thing Monday
morning, and didn’t
let up.
A weekend journal-
ism conference. A
monthly breakfast
meeting. A local
school’s Career Day, where I was going to
warn middle-school students about the per-
ils of going into journalism.
All called off, in a scene that was playing
out in far more consequential ways all over
town.
Mayor Marty Walsh canceled the annual
St.Patrick’sDayparadescheduledforSun-
day. Meanwhile, State Senator Nick Collins
was canceling the traditional breakfast that
would have taken place that morning.
The coronavirus was turning Boston in-
to something it has never been in its nearly
400 years of existence — a city where many
people don’t want to risk being around oth-
er people. Don’t shake hands. Work from
home. Meet on Zoom.
Even in its early stages, the epidemic has
dealt a serious blow to city life, whose life-
blood is the ability of people to come to-
gether.
Walsh strongly defended his decision to
cancel the parade as the only responsible
call under the circumstances. And he
strongly hinted there is more to come, as
government grapples with a crisis that is
without precedent.
“We haven’t had a community spread,
and that’s what we’re concerned about,”
Walsh said Tuesday. “People who are trying
to equate this to the flu and say more peo-
ple die of the flu, maybe that’s true.
“But six months ago none of us knew
what coronavirus was, or I didn’t, and we
weren’t talking about it. I want Bostonians
not to be fearful but to be cautious.”
The impact of the shutdowns — those al-
ready in place and those to come — will ex-
tend well beyond South Boston or St. Pat-
rick’s Day. Former state representative By-
ron Rushing told me he has been talking to
the organizers of Roxbury’s annual Patriots’
Day celebration about how to manage an
event that might have to be conducted dif-
ferently. Churches are already grappling
with curtailed physical contact during ser-
vices, but that may be nothing compared to
the restrictions on gathering soon to come.
“The poorer the community, the more
traumatic (the effects), because there aren’t
a lot of alternatives to meeting face-to-face,”
Rushing said. “The richer you are, the more
alternatives you have to meeting face-to-
face. How many Black people in Roxbury
regularly meet on Zoom? So I think it’s go-
ing to have a big effect. I don’t think any-
one’s thought through it.”
Of course, one event that looms large in
the city’s collective consciousness is the
Boston Marathon. While the race is on —
for now — Walsh was at pains Tuesday to
say the situation is “fluid” and possibly sub-
ject to change. The decision is not his
alone, of course. The Marathon goes
through — and is permitted by — eight cit-
ies and towns. In theory, any of them could
decide the risk to public safely is unaccept-
able and withdraw permission.
Citing the huge financial impact of a
cancellation on the city’s coffers — and on
charities, which now raise over $60 million
a year from the marathon — Walsh said he
would prefer a postponement to a cancella-
tion. But even a postponement would be a
logistical nightmare. Postponed until
when? Will the elite runners still show up?
Some will say — and are saying — the
crisis is being blown out of proportion.
Walsh bristled when asked about business
owners in Southie complaining about the
parade cancellation. He noted, correctly,
that they have made plenty of money the
past few years and will probably do just
fine Sunday, too.
“I hope it’s being blown out of proportion,”
he said. “I hope I can stand here in three
weeks and say it was blown out of proportion,
and we did all this preparation for nothing.
I’ll be grateful for that. Unfortunately, I don’t
think that’s going to be the case.”
For now, Walsh is the mayor of a city that
is gradually shutting down. A city that prides
itself on being stopped by nothing is sudden-
ly awash in uncertainty. Welcome to Virtual
Boston, a place we’ve never known before.
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can
be reached at [email protected].
Citylife,in
daysofvirus
Adrian Walker
Business
PAGESB6-
Forbreakingnews,goto
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business
By Danny McDonald
GLOBE STAFF
Down the ballot from the presi-
dential primary, recent elections
shook up local Democratic politics
in multiple Boston neighbor-
hoods, the result of party progres-
sives’ efforts to make ward com-
mittees more reflective of the com-
munities they serve.
From East Boston to Hyde
Park, slates of new members will
fill seats on the committees, often
seen as the sausage-making facto-
ries of local politics. Ward commit-
tees can build party clout by help-
ing to develop and promote a plat-
form, and nominate and support
the party’s candidates for office.
Members can also represent their
neighborhoods at the state’s Dem-
ocratic convention.
New groups of ward committee
candidates, organized into blocs
called “Fresh Slates,” scored signif-
icant victories in Ward 1 in East
Boston, and in Ward 18, which in-
cludes Hyde Park and parts of
Mattapan and Roslindale. The
changes, some say, reflect the left-
ward shift of the city’s political
landscape.
“I think there’s a progressive
shift in the city,” said Armani
White, a 28-year-old Lower Rox-
bury resident who was elected to
the Democratic committee for
Ward 9.
In Eastie, a new slate of candi-
dates who promised transparency,
diversity and inclusion and com-
munity participation captured 20
of the 21 seats on the committee.
The Ward 18 Fresh Slate, mean-
while, ran on advancing a “pro-
gressive change with a committee
that is engaged, transparent, and
reflective of our communities —
demographically and geographi-
cally,” according to campaign ma-
terials. There, all 35 seats on the
committee were secured by the
WARDS,PageBAdjustingAdjusting
to new routinesto new routines
By Beth Teitell
GLOBE STAFFA
re you too para-
noid about coro-
navirus? Or not
paranoid
enough? Where’s
the line, anyway?
Is Yoshi Lu on the
correct side of it? Is Katherine In-
graham?
Lu is a Medford man who has
stopped going to the gym because
even the spritz bottles used to clean
the equipment seem suspect. “No
one cleans the bottles themselves,”
said Lu, a senior educator at the
Gibson House Museum in Back Bay.
There’s no way for him to know
where other gym members have
traveled, or who they’ve been in
contact with. “It’s ‘Six Degrees of
Kevin Bacon,’ ” he said of the parlor
game, corona version.
Ingraham is a Brookline interior
design consultant with a joie de
vivre attitude who is going ahead
with a trip to London, even though
her daughter’s choir canceled its UK
tour.
“We are definitely going to pay
attention to our environment,” she
CHANGES,PageBAscasesmount,
howparanoid
shouldwebe?
Visitors to
be screened
at care
facilities
Skilled nursing
homes and assist-
ed-living facilities
are set to begin
screening all visi-
tors and restricting
entry to all but es-
sential health
workers to prevent
new outbreaks of
coronavirus, offi-
cials said.BBy Danny McDonald
GLOBE STAFF
Critics are blasting a proposal
to build an electrical substation
near a harbor estuary in East Bos-
ton, a community they say is al-
ready heavily burdened with envi-
ronmental problems. Opponents
of the project question whether
the infrastructure is necessary and
are concerned the site will flood.
“The location of this site, we
know, will flood in the future, by
the city’s own data — within the
lifespan of the facility," said John
Walkey, an East Boston resident
who works for GreenRoots, a Chel-
sea-based environmental justice
group. “And we’ll be on the hook
for paying for it.”
Eversource, the utility behind
the project, has stated the $66 mil-
lion substation is needed to meet
the growing demand for electricity
in Eastie and has dismissed the
flooding concerns.
“While electric demand in
much of New England has not
grown or remained flat, in the
East Boston area, the need for
electricity continues to grow,” Reid
SUBSTATION,PageBParty’s
panels
changing
with city
Democratic ward
committees reflect
a leftward shift
Substation
wouldface
flooding,
criticssay
SUZANNE KREITER/GLOBE STAFF
Crowds were thin at Logan Airport’s Terminal C. The spread of coronavirus has hit the travel
industry hard. Yoshi Lu (below), of Medford stopped going to the gym because of concerns.By Robert Weisman
GLOBE STAFF
Long-term care facilities in Massachu-
setts, grappling with a severe shortage of
direct care workers, fear coronavirus ex-
posure could make a bad situation worse
if sick staffers are sidelined during a cri-
sis.
Nursing homes, assisted-living cen-
ters, and other senior living communities
across the state are working overtime on
precautions to prevent infections of resi-
dents and employees. Such facilities are
on the front lines of the battle against the
spreading coronavirus because many of
their residents — older folks with weaker
immune and respiratory systems — are athigher risk.
Should an outbreak occur, as hap-
pened at Life Care Center in Kirkland,
Wash., operators worry it could tax a
workforce that’s understaffed because of
low wages and an economy that’s gener-
ated better-paying jobs. Massachusetts
long-term care facilities currently have
about 5,600 unfilled jobs. The vacancy
rate is highest, 17.2 percent, for a catego-
ry called certified nursing assistants,
front-line care workers who help resi-
dents eat, bathe, and get in and out of
bed.
Virus concerns “put stress on an al-
ready stressed system,” said Rich Bane,
STAFFING,PageBNursinghomesfearoutbreak
couldaggravatestaffshortages
With coronavirus cases multiplying
exponentially and social norms
changing rapidly, the border between
prudence and nervous Nellie-ism is
moving fast. What might have seemed
alarmist two weeks ago — now sounds
kind of wise.
‘And we have a very tight labor market and no good way to
recruit people to work in these facilities.’
SENATOR PAT JEHLEN,Democrat of SomervilleJESSICA RINALDI/GLOBE STAFF