The New York Times - USA (2020-06-28)

THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, JUNE 28, 2020 0 N 5

Tracking an OutbreakU.S. Response

those days are over,” said Jona-
than Woloshin, head of U.S. real
estate at UBS Global Wealth Man-
agement’s chief investment office,
who has spoken to executives
from major companies rethinking
elevator policy and technology, in-
cluding the eventual use of eleva-
tors called by voice command or
app.
Richard Corsi, dean of engi-
neering and computer science at
Portland State University, has cal-
culated how much virus would re-
main in an elevator if an infected
person rode 10 floors, coughing
once and talking on a smartphone.
After exiting the elevator — an act
that released some of that per-
son’s emissions from the elevator
— approximately 25 percent of the
person’s discharge would remain
by the time the empty elevator re-
turned to the first floor, he esti-
mated.
Given all the unknowns with the
coronavirus — like how much is
needed to cause illness and how
much of the aerosol would spread
to another rider’s lungs — Dr.
Corsi couldn’t determine the like-
lihood of transmission. But he said
that the excretion from an in-
fected person not wearing a mask
would make an elevator far riskier
than, say, standing in much less
confined space, for the same
amount of time, even indoors —
“100 to 1,000 times more particles
per liter of air,” he estimated.
His counsel?
“Standing as far as way as you
can diagonally in elevator would
be good, and do not speak,” he
said.
“That needs to be part of new
etiquette,” he added. “They should
put big signs on the elevator: Do
Not Speak.”
Part of the challenge is that
commercial elevator dimensions,
while they vary, aren’t built for so-
cial distancing; to meet most state
standards, an elevator should be
51 inches deep and 68 inches wide

(4 feet 3 inches by roughly 5 feet 8

inches), according to Stanley Ele-

vator Company. Even many larger

elevators won’t leave riders six

feet apart.

“More like three to four feet,”

said Douglas Linde, president of

Boston Properties, which owns

such landmark buildings as the

Prudential Tower in Boston, Gen-

eral Motors Building in New York

City and Salesforce Tower in San

Francisco. “But, again, you have a

mask on and you’re not speaking

to each other.”

Mr. Linde said Boston Proper-

ties retained consulting services

from Joseph Allen, a Harvard Uni-

versity assistant professor, who

specializes in indoor environmen-

tal quality, and experts in manag-

ing elevator traffic. They helped

work out a math problem: What

should the limit on elevator capac-

ity be so as not to create a traffic

jam in the lobby for those waiting

to ride?

The consultants figured four

could be a reliable limit even in the

tallest buildings, so long as total

building occupancy remained be-

low 60 percent. Otherwise, people

will have to wait too long.

Mr. Linde said that assuming

less than 60 percent occupancy

seemed reasonable, given that

some cities weren’t allowing full

occupancy in buildings yet and

that many companies continued

to allow or encourage working

from home.

But some companies are taking

issue with the limits on the num-

ber of riders, arguing that they

test patience and promise more

safety than can be guaranteed.

“I can’t give you the six feet in

an elevator — you’d have to have

someone on the ceiling and some-

one on the floor,” said Andrew

Hardy, head of operations at

JEMB Realty, a privately held

company that owns and operates

residential and commercial prop-

erties, including Resorts Casino

Hotel in Atlantic City, a retail

space in Herald Square and a 33-

story commercial building in the

financial district in New York.

“Our sign is going to say, ‘When

riding elevators we recommend

using your best judgment,’ ” Mr.

Hardy said. “If an elevator comes

and two or three people are in it

and you feel comfortable, you’ll

get in, and if you don’t feel com-

fortable, wait for the next one.”

“If I put two circles in an eleva-

tor and four people get in, what

am I going to do, arrest these peo-

ple?”

The campaign to make the ele-

vator safe reflects in part the new

economic reality of commercial

real estate, which has seen its for-

tunes flipped by the coronavirus.

Many companies are reviewing

whether they need pricey down-

town offices if employees can

work from home, so landlords are

working to make their buildings

feel as safe and welcoming as pos-

sible.

JEMB Realty is building a new

commercial high-rise in Brooklyn

that will have new elevator tech-

nology: a key card or fob that al-

lows tenants through a turnstile

and automatically calls an eleva-

tor to take them to their floors. Mr.

Hardy said that technology was

planned before Covid-19, but oth-

ers said the touchless elevator

would become much more com-

mon now.

There’s only so much, though,

that can be done with elevators.

Some buildings are opening stair-

wells, including those run by

CBRE, one of the world’s largest

commercial real estate operators.

Some are asking tenants to stag-

ger employee start times.

“Imagine if you have a 30-story

office building in New York City

and you’re trying to get 5,000 peo-

ple in between 7 and 9 in the morn-

ing,” said Brian Jennings, CBRE’s

managing director of business op-

erations in the Americas, who said

elevator safety ranked as a top

five concern among clients.

Other ideas include better air

ventilation, use of ultraviolet

lighting to kill germs, and antimi-

crobial surfaces, said Prof. Lee

Gray, an elevator historian from

the University of North Carolina

at Charlotte and correspondent

for Elevator World Magazine. He

said the density in elevators had-

n’t faced such a challenge since

1918, when elevators weren’t

touched by riders at all, but by an

attendant.

Today, the challenge is more

widespread.

“I can’t think of any thing com-

parable to this,” he said. “This is

the world’s smallest room and I

don’t want to be in there with

someone else.”

Elevators are an obvious risk, and the C.D.C. is planning to offer guidance as early as this week.

Rider limits may be strict, perhaps as few as four at a time, and hand sanitizer will be ubiquitous.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY TONY LUONG FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

THE CHANGING WORLD

Don’t Whistle on Elevator.

Or Talk. Or Turn Around.

From Page 1

Maybe ‘100 to 1,

times more particles

per liter of air.’

the top, states went their own
ways. A number of them failed to
use the shutdown to fully pre-
pare to reopen in a careful man-
ner. As Americans bought pre-
cious time trying to keep the
virus at bay, experts advised that
states urgently needed to estab-
lish a robust system for tracking
and containing any new cases —
through testing, monitoring and
contact tracing. Without this, the
pandemic would simply come
roaring back.
Testing and contact tracing
efforts were ramped up, but not
enough in some places. Even
states that did embark on ambi-
tious plans to do contact tracing
struggled. Health officials in
Massachusetts, which has one of
the country’s most established
tracing programs, said in May
that only about 60 percent of
infected patients were picking up
the phone.
Just as the country needed to
stay shut down longer, many
states — mostly with Republican
governors — took their foot off
the brake, and Mr. Trump
cheered them on.
In early May, when more than
half of U.S. states had begun
reopening parts of their econo-
mies, most failed to meet the
nonbinding criteria recom-
mended by the Trump adminis-
tration itself to resume business
and social activities.
The White House’s nonbinding
guidelines suggested that states
should have a “downward trajec-
tory” of documented coronavirus
cases or of the percentage of
positive tests.
Yet most states that were
reopening failed to adhere to
even these ill-defined recommen-
dations. They had case counts
that were trending upward,
positive test results that were
rising, or both, raising concerns
among public health experts.
The virus has proved formida-
ble around the world, resisting
global efforts to find a treatment,
refusing to fade in summer
weather and unrelenting in ex-
ploiting weaknesses in govern-
ment responses, even in coun-
tries whose responses to the
virus have been considered a
success — and where the threat
seemed tamed.

Germany, whose handling of

the virus was considered a suc-

cess, had to reimpose lockdowns

on two counties where there was

a spike of cases in slaughter-

houses and low-income housing

blocks. Singapore experienced a

second wave of infections in

April.

And in China, which adopted

some of the world’s strictest

measures to contain the virus,

Beijing suffered this month a

new surge of cases, causing

flights to be canceled and schools

to be closed.

Much of the challenge stems

from major gaps in knowledge

about how the virus works. In

addition to chasing a vaccine,

scientists around the world are

still trying to unravel important

mysteries, including how long

immunity lasts after infection

and why some people get so

much sicker than others.

For Americans, a troubling

new reality set in this week:

Even some parts of the country,

like New York, were finally get-

ting the virus under control, it

was surging anew in others, like

a terrifying sequel, threatening

lives and livelihoods.

New virus cases were on the

rise in 29 states on Friday as the

outlook worsened across much of

the nation’s South and West.

On Saturday, Florida reported

more than 9,500 new coronavirus

cases, beating its record for the

second consecutive day. At least

980 new cases were added in

Nevada, more than double the

state’s previous daily high. And

in South Carolina, officials an-

nounced more than 1,600 new

cases, nearly 300 more than the

previous record, set a day before.

In Florida and Texas, gover-

nors closed bars on Friday, as

they scrambled to control what

appeared to be a brewing public

health catastrophe. All this is

leaving people with a strange

sense of déjà vu and a bitterness

at public officials for what felt

like a fumbling of people’s sacri-

fices.

“Are we doing a full circle?

Yes,” said Judy Ray, 57, a cosme-

tologist and hairdresser in Flor-

ida who was laid off from her job

at a barbershop at Walt Disney

World Resort in March.

“Everyone is passing the

buck,” she said of political lead-

ers in Florida. “You don’t see the

chain of command actually work-

ing.”

Ms. Ray, a Disney employee

for 13 years, said she had not

received any unemployment

benefits — federal or state, in the

10 weeks she has been off. She

has called the unemployment

office hundreds of times since

March, including this week,

when she said she broke down

into tears of frustration after

being told her case was still

pending. She has sliced $200 out

of her monthly budget and has

been paying her mortgage from

her savings.

“I don’t think they care about

what we’ve had to go through,”

Ms. Ray said of state authorities.

“It means that we are the ones

that hurt. You know?”

Many Americans started in the

pandemic with a strong feeling of

solidarity, not unlike the days

after Sept. 11, 2001. They closed

their businesses, stayed inside,

made masks and wiped down

their groceries. In a country

often riven by politics, polls

showed broad agreement that

shutting down was the right

thing to do.

But months of mixed mes-

sages have left many exhausted

and wondering how much of

what they did was worth it.

Tony Jacobs, owner and pro-

prietor of Sideshow Books, a

used book store in Los Angeles,

said in the early weeks of the

lockdown he had taken to deliv-

ering books by bike around the

neighborhood in a mask and

gloves.

“I thought it would be an effec-

tive way to stop the virus — if we

just locked down for two or three

weeks, we could knock it out of

L.A.,” he said. “I felt that was the

civic duty, and that everybody

was going to be compensated for

doing the civic duty.”

The plight of California has

served as a warning that even

states that were more aggressive

in their strategies have not been

entirely successful.

California, which had the first

stay-at-home order in the United

States this spring, allowed busi-

nesses to reopen weeks ago as

the state felt it had the virus

under control. That seems to be

changing: California reported its

highest single-day total this week

and announced more than 5,

new cases on Friday.

The rise comes despite the fact

that the state has hired and

trained thousands of contact

tracers. It has also dramatically

ramped up testing. And the

millions of face masks that were

promised early on have begun to

finally materialize.

Mr. Jacobs felt the lockdown

had been squandered and his

business hung out to dry. As for

whether Mr. Jacobs’ sacrifices

were worth it, he said, “Oh God,

no.”

In recent weeks, some conser-

vatives said they had an addi-

tional concern: After weeks of

being told that going to church,

attending funerals, and partici-

pating in protests was a willful,

careless spurning of science,

political leaders and some public

health officials condoned — and

even joined — the crowds pro-

testing the killing of George

Floyd.

“It’s just a real social whip-

lash,” said Philip Campbell, vice

president of a pest control com-

pany in Central Michigan, who

took part in the first protests

against the lockdown in Lansing

in April from the cab of his truck.

“Two weeks ago you can’t go out

because you are going to kill

grandma. Now it’s ‘you have an

obligation to go out.’ It leaves me

feeling that the science and the

public health authorities have

been politicized.”

American’s trust in the federal

government has been falling for

decades, but the recent months

of muddied messaging have left

many even more skeptical of

public officials.

“I’m not angry, I’m disap-

pointed, disappointed in the

government, very much so,” said

Gail Creary, owns Humble Care,

an assisted living facility in south

Miami-Dade County, Fla. She and

her sister take care of six older

adults in a three-bedroom house

in the suburbs. “I think they

should really have taken better

control of this.”

She laments that there isn’t

more widespread testing and

contact tracing.

“We have a governor who can’t

even say, ‘Hey we’re making

wearing a mask mandatory,’ ”

she said.

Dr. Schaffner offered a bleak

prognosis for the country’s next

chapter with the virus. He said

he did not expect the country to

return to a full lockdown, so in

order to contain the infection

people would have to begin to

change behaviors in ways that

were uncomfortable, unfamiliar

— wearing masks, not gathering

in large groups indoors, staying

six feet apart.

“The only alternative until we

have a vaccine is all of these

behavioral interventions that we

know work,” he said. But, he

added, “The governors are all on

different pages. It is no wonder

that the average person is con-

fused.”

NEWS ANALYSIS

Cases Soar as Leadership Fails to Control Virus After Lockdowns Ease

Taking a patron’s temperature last week before seating her at Big Dean’s, a restaurant by the Santa Monica Pier in California.

BRYAN DENTON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

From Page 1

Frances Robles reported from Mi-
ami, and Louis Keene from Los An-
geles. Reporting was contributed
by Tim Arango from Los Angeles,
Shawn Hubler from Sacramento,
David Montgomery from Austin,
Texas, and Bryant Rousseau from
New York.