Little Things that Matter Your LIFE: The Coronavirus Brief: Can NYC's yellow cab survive?

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Presented By Goldman Sachs

Weekend Edition: May 16-17, 2020

BY PAUL MOAKLEY

The Uncertain Future of New York City’s Yellow Cab Drivers

On May 2, I went to Manhattan for the first time in almost two months since TIME journalists began working from home, after years of commuting into the city every day for the job. My plan was to talk to New York City cabbies, and learn about what it was like driving a yellow car during the pandemic.

At 8:07 in the morning, I met up with photographer Andre D. Wagner at the Flatiron building on 5th and 22nd, and together we walked to the normally busy taxi rest areas between 23rd and 32nd Streets. It felt like a ghost town, but we eventually found a cab to take us to Grand Central Station, the transportation hub on 42nd Street. Luckily for us, the driver, Carlos Gallego, who has been a New York cabbie for 27 years, was willing to talk to us about what it’s like to do the job right now. “I can pay some bills,” he says, “but some not.”

At Grand Central Station, there was a line of cabs waiting for a fare. One driver told me that “there is no more rush hour.”

For nearly 12 hours, we used Grand Central as a launch pad to ride in cars, and interview and photograph drivers. Many had similar stories to share about their struggle to survive—most said they’ve lost 50% to 75% of their income since a stay-at-home order was issued on March 20.

Kim Jaemin, a 58-year-old from Queens, has been driving a taxi for 20 years. After he picked us up on a desolate stretch of Broadway in Times Square, I noticed that his fraying mask was being held together with duct tape. Kim told us that of his seven passengers so far that day, five didn’t tip. “I have to make every possible penny, nickel and dime,” said Kim, who lives alone in Queens and scribbles every fare and tip he gets into a notepad.

Many drivers have filed for unemployment benefits, and some, like 64-year-old Mohamed Eleissawy, from New Jersey, are still awaiting a response.

Toward the end of the day, we decided to go to the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn, where we met up with Almontasir Ahmed Mohamed, 33, who was sitting in his cab waiting to break his daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan. Driving a cab right now, he said, makes him fear for his own health. “Most of our customers are from the hospital and you don’t know who you are picking up,” he said. “Two friends from my country who are drivers have died.”

“Nothing can help us. I put up plastic but if someone has it, it’s still going to affect you,” he went on. “I try to leave the windows open. Every day I watch the news and hear something different about the virus. You don’t know which is correct. I’m just praying five times every day to keep this virus away and for my family.”

Read the story, written by Melissa Chan, here.

OVER THE WEEKEND

U.S. Economic Woes Continue

Late on Friday, department store chain J.C. Penney filed for bankruptcy, becoming the fourth major U.S. retailer to do so. It’s still unclear what that will mean for the company’s 850 stores and some 90,000 employees, but it’s almost certainly going to mean significant closures and financial restructuring. J.C. Penney (along with many other department stores) had been struggling before the COVID-19 pandemic, and plummeting foot traffic and sales in recent months pushed it to bankruptcy.

Of course, it’s not just J.C. Penney that’s hurting. The bankruptcy news followed a report on Friday from the U.S. Commerce Department showing that retail sales in the country dropped 16.4% from March to April. That monthly decline nearly doubled the previous record, 8.3%, which just so happened to have been set the month before.

To combat this economic drain, local leaders around the country are attempting to reopen many businesses, despite health experts’ warnings that it may be too early to do so safely. Beyond the public health risks, though, there’s another issue: as TIME’s Andrew Chow reported earlier this week, customers aren’t necessarily showing up to newly reopened stores and business.

Obama Critiques U.S. Leadership’s Poor Pandemic Response

On Saturday, former President Barack Obama gave two online commencement speeches, one addressed to high school seniors, and the other to the graduating classes of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). In both, he sharply criticized lack of U.S. leadership during the country’s descent into the coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic crisis.

From his speech to HBCU graduates: “More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing. A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge.”

From his speech to high school seniors: “It’s also pulled the curtain back on another hard truth, something that we all have to eventually accept once our childhood comes to an end. All those adults that you used to think were in charge and knew what they were doing? Turns out that they don’t have all the answers. A lot of them aren’t even asking the right questions. So, if the world’s going to get better, it’s going to be up to you.”

Perhaps underscoring Obama’s point, the next day, top officials in the Trump administration seemed to clash on basic questions of the U.S. government’s coronavirus response. This morning, speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, White House economic advisor Peter Navarro said, “early on in this crisis, the CDC, which really had the most trusted brand around the world in this space, really let the country down with the testing.” Later this morning, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar suggested the opposite in an appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation. “I don’t believe the CDC let this country down,” Azar said. “I believe the CDC serves an important public health role and what was always critical was to get the private sector to the table.”

Also today, Azar appeared to suggest on CNN’s State of the Union that individuals have the freedom to act irresponsibly during the pandemic. “I think in any individual instance you’re going to see people doing things that are irresponsible. That’s part of the freedom that we have here in America,” Azar said.

Warning Signs in Brazil

As Matt Sandy and Flávia Milhorance report for TIME, poor leadership, an overburdened health care system, and lack of adherence to social distancing measures have combined to put Brazil on the brink of becoming the world’s new COVID-19 epicenter.

Already, with some 233,000 total cases, Brazil trails only the U.S., Russia and the U.K. But more worryingly, it appears nowhere near to flattening or bending the curve of new daily cases:

Compare that to the U.S., for example:

Worse still, experts warn that a lack of testing in Brazil suggests a severe undercount of total cases in the country.

Elsewhere Around the Globe

The world’s two most populous countries this weekend announced major efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Clusters of COVID-19 in the Jilin Province of northeast China led the country to raise the area’s outbreak risk from “medium” to “high” earlier today. Over 800,000 people there have been placed in quarantine as public health experts scramble to contact-trace all those at high risk for infection and get them tested.

Also earlier today, India extended its national lockdown for at least two more weeks. Despite bans on visiting shopping malls, movie theaters, restaurants, schools, hotels and more, the country has confirmed about 4,000 new cases every day for the last two weeks.