A10 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2020Tracking an OutbreakThe Region and the Economy
A few months ago, New York
was suffering through the worst
ravages of the coronavirus pan-
demic. Hospitals filled to near ca-
pacity. Hundreds of people died
each day, reaching a peak in mid-
April.
The rest of the country recoiled
at the sight of a New York license
plate. Florida and Rhode Island
singled out New York travelers,
who researchers now believe
helped to seed the spread of the vi-
rus in other states.
But as New York has largely
controlled its outbreak, other
states — especially in the Sun Belt
and the West — have seen virus
cases surge, leading to a table-
turning moment: Gov. Andrew M.
Cuomo on Wednesday announced
that anyone coming to New York
from a state currently hard hit by
the virus would have to quaran-
tine for two weeks.
The restrictions were based on
specific health metrics related to
the coronavirus, Mr. Cuomo said.
At the moment, travelers from
eight states — as well as New
Yorkers returning from those
states — would have to quaran-
tine.
“We now have to make sure that
the rate continues to drop,” Mr.
Cuomo said. “A lot of people come
into this region and they could lit-
erally bring the infection with
them. It wouldn’t be malicious or
malevolent, but it would still be
real.”
Failure to quarantine in New
York could result in thousand-dol-
lar fines, Mr. Cuomo said. Trav-
elers to New Jersey and Connecti-
cut would also be told to quaran-
tine, though officials from both
states said there was no enforce-
ment mechanism at the moment.
The order — a “joint travel advi-
sory” with the two other states —
would take effect at midnight, Mr.
Cuomo said Wednesday. He said
the quick implementation was
aimed at preventing a rush of
travelers trying to avoid the re-
quirement, which applied to Ala-
bama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida,
North Carolina, South Carolina,
Texas and Utah.
Washington State had origi-
nally been included, but after a
further review of the data, it was
dropped from the list.
As businesses reopen and pub-
lic life returns, the virus has been
spreading to areas that had
mostly managed to initially evade
the worst of the outbreak.
In recent days, Texas has seen
record-high levels of hospitaliza-
tions for Covid-19, the disease
caused by the coronavirus. Hospi-
tals, particularly in Houston, have
struggled to keep up with the ris-
ing number of patients needing in-
tensive care.
Amid rising hospitalizations in
North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper
said on Wednesday that the state
would “pause” its move into the
next phase of reopening and make
masks required statewide in pub-
lic when distancing is not possible.
In Florida, more than 20,
people tested positive for the vi-
rus over the last five days ending
Tuesday; in New York, where far
more people are being tested
daily, roughly 3,100 tested positive
over those same five days.
Only a handful of states — in-
cluding Maine, Rhode Island and
Hawaii — have required out-of-
state travelers to quarantine. A
larger number have asked trav-
elers to quarantine but do not
mandate doing so. And a few, such
as Florida and Kansas, apply the
requirement only to those coming
from certain states.
The new quarantine in New
York, New Jersey and Connecti-
cut would apply to any person ar-
riving from a state with a positive
test rate higher than 10 per
100,000 residents, or a state with a
10 percent or higher rate over a
seven-day rolling average.
Mr. Cuomo said that enforce-
ment would be up to each of the
three states. In New York, he said,
those violating the quarantine or-
der could be “subject to a judicial
order and mandatory quaran-
tine.” A first violation could result
in a $2,000 fine and could go up to
$10,000 for subsequent violations.
Indeed, the effect of the order
may be largely symbolic. Even inplaces where out-of-state arrivals
are already formally required to
quarantine, there has not been
widespread enforcement to make
sure the rules were being fol-
lowed.
A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo
said that if a New Yorker believes
that a recent arrival — or a return-
ing neighbor — has not been abid-
ing by the quarantine, then that
person should start by reportingthe possible violation to the local
health department.
“You could argue that even law
is the honor system until you get
caught,” Mr. Cuomo said. “You can
violate the quarantine until you
get caught,” he added, then
“you’re in mandatory quarantine
and fined thousands of dollars.”
Players from the Mets and Yan-
kees who have been in Florida but
are coming back to New York for
an abbreviated and late spring
training will not be required to
quarantine, Mr. Cuomo said. The
state had been working on sepa-rate “health protocols” with them
since last week, he said.
Mr. Cuomo, who hosted the
news conference from New York
City, was joined via video link by
Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jer-
sey and Gov. Ned Lamont of Con-
necticut, all three Democrats.
“This is a smart thing to do. We
have taken our people, the three of
us, these three states, through hell
and back,” Mr. Murphy said. “The
last thing we need to is subject our
folks to another round.”
The goal, the governors said,
was to maintain the hard-fought
gains against the virus that have
been made, at great economic and
human cost, over the past three
months. On Monday, for example,
nearly 49,000 people were tested
for the virus in New York, with
just shy of 600 coming back pos-
itive.
Since the middle of March, New
Yorkers have largely abided by
the orders to stay at home and
wear masks in public, creating a
new way of life in the city and sur-
rounding suburbs that helped to
bring new infections down to a
manageable level.
At the same time, many New
Yorkers with the means to do so
fled, often to out-of-state locales.
By late March, Florida began re-
quiring travelers from the New
York area to quarantine. Other
states sought to restrict visitors.Now, the virus appears to be
spreading far more rapidly out-
side of New York, with new infec-
tions surging in places like Ari-
zona and Texas. Those who left for
other states, upon their return to
New York, will have to quarantine.
The city and state have begun a
phased reopening of business that
has been more cautious than
other areas of the country, and Mr.
Cuomo as well as other officials
have been concerned about a re-
surgence of the virus. The travel
restrictions were an attempt at
mitigating the risk of new infec-
tions coming from outside the
state.
“We now have the virus under
control. Yeah, but Florida doesn’t,
Texas doesn’t, these other states
don’t,” he said last week. “And
what happens if they get on a
plane and they come to J.F.K.? So,
we get the infection rate down and
then because other states are
high, we could have a problem.”
Epidemiologists do not see a
uniform coronavirus wave
spreading across the country, but
multiple outbreaks that are out of
sync with each other. In that con-
text, they said, quarantine re-
quirements made sense.
They also cautioned that the
outbreak remains active and that
the situation in any one state or re-
gion of the country could still
change.STOPPING THE SPREAD
New York Imposes Quarantine on Travelers From Hot Spots
By J. DAVID GOODMANWilliamsburg, Brooklyn, this month. Although New Yorkers have become increasingly social, the outbreak has slowed in the state.JUAN ARREDONDO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESConnecticut and New
Jersey also require
two weeks of isolation.
testing positive has risen sharply.
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California
said Wednesday that the state re-
corded more than 7,000 new cases
over the past day.
“I want to remind everybody
that we are still in the first wave of
this pandemic,” Mr. Newsom said
during a virtual news briefing.
The governor pleaded with resi-
dents, many of whom he acknowl-
edged were gathering with
friends and relatives, to continue
practicing social distancing, to
stay outdoors whenever possible
and to wear a mask.
Texas reported more than 6,
new cases on Wednesday. In
Houston, the intensive-care units
were at 97 percent of capacity, and
hospitals risked running out of
I.C.U. beds within two weeks if
nothing is done to slow the up-
ward trajectory of the virus.
“I strongly feel we are moving
in the wrong direction, and we are
moving fast,” Mayor Sylvester
Turner of Houston said.
In Washington State, where
cases are rising again, Gov. Jay In-
slee said residents would have to
start wearing masks in public.
“This is about saving lives,” Mr.
Inslee said. “It’s about reopening
our businesses.”
In Florida on Wednesday, Gov.
Ron DeSantis gave no indication
that the state would roll back its
economic opening, but he urged
residents to avoid closed spaces
with poor ventilation, crowds and
close contact with others.
Mr. DeSantis continued to at-
tribute the rising infections to
younger people who have started
to socialize in bars and homes, de-
spite rules in many municipalities
prohibiting group gatherings.
“You need to do your part and
make sure that you’re not spread-
ing it to people who are going to be
more at risk for this,” he said.
The percentage of people in
Florida testing positive has risen
sharply, but testing alone does not
explain the surge. Increases in
hospitalizations also signal the vi-
rus’s spread.
New case reports also reached
their highest levels in recent days
in Missouri, but coronavirus hos-
pitalizations have declined
slightly over the last month.
“We are NOT overwhelmed,”
Gov. Mike Parson wrote on Twit-
ter, linking the uptick to more test-
ing. “We are NOT currently expe-
riencing a second wave. We have
NO intentions of closing Missouri
back down at this point in time.”
The World Health Organization
warned on Wednesday that if gov-
ernments and communities in the
Americas were not able to stop the
spread of the virus through sur-
veillance, isolation of cases and
quarantine of contacts, there
might be a need to impose — or re-
impose — general lockdowns.
The New York quarantine an-
nounced by Gov. Andrew M.
Cuomo applies to visitors from
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas,
Florida, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Utah and Texas, as well
as New Yorkers returning from
those states. Violators could be
subject to a mandatory quaran-
tine and fines of up to $10,000.
Travelers to New Jersey and Con-
necticut will also be told to quar-
antine.
The reopening of many busi-
nesses is not going smoothly. Ap-
ple said Wednesday that it had
shut seven stores in the Houston
area because of the rising number
of cases in the region. Last week, it
closed 11 stores in Arizona, Flor-
ida, South Carolina and North Car-
olina. Apple had opened most of
its stores in the United States in
recent weeks after closing nearlyall of its roughly 500 stores world-
wide months ago.
Many stock market investors,
who had been expecting the virus
to retreat swiftly, were alarmed by
its resurgence. The spike ap-
peared to undermine hopes for a
V-shaped rebound, in which both
the economy and corporate prof-
its would bounce back as swiftly
as they plunged when the United
States fell into a recession.
“All the hopes of investors look-
ing for a better economy to im-
prove the bottom lines of compa-
nies shut down in the recession
have been dashed,” Chris Rupkey,
chief financial economist at
MUFG Union Bank, wrote in a
note to clients on Wednesday.
“Forget about the fears of the vi-
rus coming back in the fall. The
number of new cases and hospital-
izations in states like Arizona,
Texas and Florida says the threat
is happening right now.”
This is the second time in recent
weeks that the S&P 500 stock
market index has faltered. On
June 11, reports of rising infec-
tions set off a 5.9 percent drop.
Wednesday’s market drop was led
by sharp downturns in sectors in-cluding energy, industrial and fi-
nancial shares, which tend to be
sensitive to the near-term expec-
tations for economic growth.
For most of the day, investors
clobbered the stocks of companies
that are most vulnerable to the
risks of a prolonged pandemic.
The cruise line Norwegian was
down 12.4 percent, while the com-
petitors Royal Caribbean and Car-
nival both plummeted more than
11 percent. They were the three
worst-performing issues in the
S&P 500.
Airlines were hammered, with
United Airlines down more than
8.3 percent and Delta Air Lines
dropping by 7.8 percent. Energy
and oil field services companies
tumbled, too. Occidental Petro-
leum dropped 9 percent and Hal-
iburton fell 8.8 percent, as oil
prices dropped more than 5 per-
cent pushing the cost of a barrel of
West Texas Intermediate oil be-
low $40.
Investors in other markets as-
sumed a dour outlook for eco-
nomic growth. Yields on govern-
ment bonds — traditionally linked
to expectations for growth and in-
flation — fell. The dollar, a tradi-tional safe haven for investors,
rose.
Gold prices slipped slightly, af-
ter earlier in the day flirting with
some of their highest levels in al-
most a decade, approaching
$1,780 an ounce. Gold is tradition-
ally viewed as a hedge against po-
tential inflation, and a safe asset
for investors during times of
growing political and economic
uncertainty.
The global picture also looked
gloomy. The International Mone-
tary Fund said global gross do-
mestic product would shrink 4.
percent in 2020, a sharper con-
traction than the 3 percent decline
it predicted just two months ago.
The I.M.F. also lowered its expec-
tations for growth in the United
States, saying that the world’s
largest economy will shrink 8 per-
cent this year, more than the
roughly 6 percent rate it expected
in April.
“We are definitely not out of the
woods,” said Gita Gopinath, direc-
tor of the I.M.F.’s research depart-
ment. “This is a crisis like no other
and will have a recovery like no
other.”
And as infection rates rise in
California, the Walt Disney Com-
pany on Wednesday abandoned
its plan to reopen Disneyland and
Disney California Adventure on
July 17, citing a slower-than-antic-
ipated approval process by state
regulators.
The two theme parks, which
border each other in Anaheim,
closed on March 13. Unions repre-
senting most of the Disneyland’s
32,000 employees sent a letter to
Governor Newsom on June 17
saying that “despite intensive
talks with the company, we are not
yet convinced that it is safe to re-
open the parks on Disney’s rapid
timetable.” Since then, many of
Disney’s unions have signed
agreements with the company
outlining enhanced safety pro-
cedures.Jack Nicas, Alan Rappeport and J.
David Goodman contributed re-
porting.
A PATHOGEN’S PUNCH
U.S. Staggers Back on the Ropes as Coronavirus Infections Soar
The S& P 500 Index
Position of the S& P 500 index at 1-minute intervals on Wednesday.Source: Reuters THE NEW YORK TIMES3,3,3,3,10 a.m. Noon 2 p.m. 4 p.m.Previous close
3,131.From Page ABOSTON — An investigation of
76 deaths linked to the coro-
navirus at a state-run veterans’
home in Massachusetts paints a
picture of a facility in chaos, as
traumatized nurses carried out
orders to combine wards of in-
fected and uninfected men, know-
ing that the move would prove
deadly to many of their patients.
Workers at the facility, the Hol-
yoke Soldiers’ Home, remem-
bered the days in late March as
“total pandemonium” and a
“nightmare.”
One social worker told investi-
gators, in a report released on
Wednesday, that she “felt like it
was moving the concentration
camp, we were moving these un-
knowing veterans off to die.”
Another recalled sitting in a
makeshift ward that was crowded
with sick and dying patients, some
unclothed or without masks, and
trying to distract a man who was
“alert and oriented,” chattering
about the Swedish meatballs his
wife used to make.
“It was surreal,” she said. “I
don’t know how the staff over in
that unit, how many of us will ever
recover from those images.”
Nursing home deaths have ac-
counted for more than 60 percent
of the fatalities from the coro-
navirus in Massachusetts, a state
that prides itself on its health care
system. None of those deaths
have received more attention than
the cluster at the Holyoke Sol-
diers’ Home, which housed frail
veterans of World War II and
other conflicts.
The 174-page independent re-
port, led by the former federal
prosecutor Mark Pearlstein,
blasts decisions made by the facil-
ity’s superintendent, Bennett
Walsh, as “utterly baffling from an
infection-control perspective.”
The report was especially
scathing on the decision to com-
bine crowded wards. But it cata-
logs a series of other errors, in-
cluding failure to isolate infected
veterans, failure to test veterans
who had symptoms, and the rota-
tion of staff members between
wards, accelerating the spread of
the virus.
“In short, this was the opposite
of infection control: Mr. Walsh and
his team created close to an opti-
mal environment for the spread of
Covid-19,” the report said.
Gov. Charlie Baker of Massa-
chusetts said on Wednesday that
the accounts in the report were
“one of the most depressing and
utterly shameful descriptions of
what was supposed to be a care
system that I have ever heard of.”
The state is acting to fire Mr.
Walsh, a retired Marine Corps
lieutenant colonel with no previ-
ous nursing home experience, the
governor said. A lawyer for Mr.
Walsh was not immediately avail-
able for comment.
Mr. Walsh’s supervisor, Fran-
cisco Urena, resigned from his
post as the state’s secretary of vet-
erans’ services on Tuesday in an-
ticipation of the report. Mr. Baker
said the secretary was asked to
step down.
Staff members told investiga-
tors that they were initially dis-
couraged from wearing protective
equipment to conserve a limited
supply, and that they felt “an-
noyed, paranoid and fearful for
their lives because they could not
find masks,” the report said.
The most troubling portions of
the report describe the weekend
of March 28 and 29, when staffing
was so short at the home that two
wards were hurriedly combined, a
decision one employee described
as “the most insane thing I ever
saw in my entire life.”
A social worker described lis-
tening to the chief nursing officer
say “something to the effect that
this room will be dead by Sunday,
so we will have more room here.”
Another social worker recalled
seeing a supervisor point to a
room and say, “All this room will
be dead by tomorrow.”
Several staff members told in-
vestigators that, in the confusion,
some of the dying men did not re-
ceive adequate pain relief medica-
tion.
None of the facility’s top admin-
istrators acknowledged taking
part in the decision to combine the
two wards, and its medical direc-
tor, David Clinton, told investiga-
tors he was not consulted.
“We find this not to be credible,
and at the very least, that Dr. Clin-
ton was aware (or should have
been aware) of the move and did
nothing to stop it,” the report said.
Val Liptak, the interim adminis-
trator brought in to manage the
crisis, told investigators that,
though she and her team had a
“collective 90-plus years of nurs-
ing” among them, “none of us
have ever seen anything like this.”
The overcrowded ward, she said,
“looked like a war zone.”WHAT WENT WRONGInquiry Finds
‘Nightmare’
At a Home
For Veterans
By ELLEN BARRY