A new normal: efforts to give back in an empty and eerie New York City

First published April 2020, Worcester Telegram and Gazette

Over the past 42 days, the state of mind that inhabits all New Yorkers has changed as it has become the epicenter of coronavirus in the United States.

Slowly, the streets have nearly emptied, people have been keeping a six-foot distance in public, and duck into bike lanes to avoid a passerby from brushing shoulders on the sidewalks. Central Park, continues to be filled with people exercising and children playing, but caution and tension is visible with the consciousness that an emergency field hospital sits in the park filled with patients.

Grand Central, once a known metaphor for busyness is now all but vacant. This is what I found on Monday as I made my way from the Upper West Side to the New York City landmark. During a normal day in New York I would have gotten on the downtown 1 train outside my office and transferred at Time Square to the cross-town shuttle. Now, driving in a car that I have been lucky enough to borrow for the foreseeable future, I turned this typical 30-minute train commute into an 8-minute car ride.

While driving I considered the different side streets leading up to Grand Central that might have parking spaces. As I approached, it was becoming clear that this would not be an issue. I parked right out in front of Pershing Square across one of the main entrances. I threw my hazards on and got out of the car and looked around for any signs that I could get towed.

This area, usually filled to the brim with people traffic, taxi cabs and horns blaring was now an eerie quiet.

I waited outside the door of the Grand Central Blood Donation Center and read the list of everything that would bar a person from coming inside. Having any sort of symptoms of coronavirus was typed out bold and clear at the top. A nurse came out in full scrubs and a mask and handed me a disposable thermometer. Once cleared I was told to stand a part from the workers as they cleaned off a desk and computer for me to answer the questionnaire on my health and travel.

They called me into a side room and took my temperature again and then blood pressure. Then they gave me a finger prick and told me my next donation date would be June 1.

A phlebotomist named Monte greeted me, visibly smiling through his mask. He was talking to everyone in the room and had a radio in the corner playing music. "Pour Some Sugar On Me" was playing and he told me to squeeze my hand to the beat of the song to create the blood flow and to get me through my nerves. Twenty minutes later I was done and nodded at the six other people spaced out throughout the room.

As I was getting ready to leave a nurse came back into the waiting room clearly frustrated as a woman had been yelling at her for being turned away. The woman had been sniffling and the nurse wouldn't take her temperature or let her past the first door. The woman said it was only allergies. The nurse, nonplussed by this, said anyone exhibiting signs of questionable health would not be considered for donation.

I contacted my donation center here in New York because I am healthy. I am out in the city everyday whether it is exercising in Central Park, going to the grocery store or going to and from work. Fear of exposure was not a factor for me. What initially brought blood donation to my attention was an interview The New Yorker did with doctors from all over the country talking about the biggest problems currently facing hospitals.

"We are in an impending blood shortage. Patients requiring surgery, patients with certain cancers need blood transfusions. Call your blood donation centers, which should be open, most of them still are, and find out what it takes for you to actually get there," said Dr. Ali Raja of Harvard Medical School.

As coronavirus spread across the United States all blood drives have been cancelled and donations can only be made at centers and by appointment only. With the major increase of sickness, there is a scarcity in those qualified to give blood. Conversely, healthy people are skittish about giving blood as most people aren't leaving their homes and are afraid to be exposed.

The blood donation centers are not testing for the coronavirus so you must be 28 days clear without symptoms before you can consider donating blood and cannot have been in contact with someone suspected of or positive with coronavirus for at least two weeks. They have taken every possible precaution to make sure those who may have contracted the virus are not donating blood.

As I left the Grand Central Donation Center I was struck by a small group of people whose faces were covered with masks and scarves, walking into the building to donate. What was once a bustling section of midtown Manhattan now held just a few people who, during scary and uncertain times, doing what they could. We exchanged a nod and a "stay safe" and I walked back to my undisturbed car, on an empty street, in a quiet city.