Panorama Coronavirus Destination New York
Panorama Coronavirus Destination New York
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00:00York. America is reopening as its COVID death toll reaches 100,000. But just weeks ago,
00:10so many were dying in New York that bodies were left to rot on the streets.
00:16I'm not going to sugar coat this in any way. Very upsetting.
00:20I'm Hilary Anderson. For decades, I've worked as a reporter on wars and disasters all over
00:26the world. But I never expected to see a crisis of this scale in my own country.
00:33We were looking at a freight train coming across the country. We're now looking at a bullet train.
00:39Two months ago, I began filming my journey to the eye of the storm in New York.
00:45This crisis is completely out of control.
00:48I wanted to know how, in the richest country in the world, 21,000 people could die in one city.
00:57And ask, is the rest of America about to repeat the mistakes of New York?
01:02I feel like we need to have a corona party. I'll bring the corona.
01:07Rural Vermont, my home.
01:33Far you might think from today's pandemic.
01:37But the virus knows no bounds. It's trickled deep into rural America.
01:49Vermont's relatively protected from the virus, but this old people's home right here has had
01:55seven people die in it and 36 test positive, half of them staff. So, you know, this is how bad it is,
02:04even in a small rural part of America.
02:11My neighbours are afraid. I've heard of one who's taking the safety of his family
02:16to a whole new level.
02:18I'm on my way right now to go see a friend who's a dairy farmer. His name's Joel Pomenville.
02:23And he lives with his mother, who's elderly.
02:28And I understand he's taken some extreme precautions to try to protect her.
02:34I'll see if your soup is hot enough or you want me to heat it a little bit more.
02:47To protect his mother, Joel has built a physical barrier
02:50down the middle of their sitting room.
02:54Your mom, how did she react when you came up with the idea of the glass, the bubble room?
02:59She didn't like it.
03:00She doesn't like this whole COVID-19 thing interfering with her life, but who does, right?
03:09Yeah.
03:10But I just feel responsible for her health.
03:14And how long are you planning on leaving this up and using this?
03:17Until we have a vaccine.
03:20Oh, a long time.
03:26Really?
03:27Yeah.
03:28Really?
03:29Well, I'm hoping.
03:32Johnson & Johnson said they're going to have it.
03:33That means all summer?
03:35Johnson & Johnson says their vaccine's going to be ready in eight months.
03:39That was a month ago.
03:39Eight months. Oh my goodness.
03:45Can you do this for eight months?
03:46I didn't know that.
03:48With so few people here, it's a relatively easy place to isolate.
03:53But New York City is just five hours away.
03:58I'd begun talking to emergency doctors there.
04:02Their stories were disturbing.
04:05So it's absolutely insane.
04:08We just had another death in the hospital.
04:11The death toll from coronavirus has jumped dramatically tonight
04:14after New York City said it has been under-counting those killed by the disease.
04:19Other countries have higher rates of death.
04:22But by April, the United States had overtaken China and Europe as the global epicenter.
04:31And now this was becoming personal.
04:34It's just a matter of time before we get to the point where we're going to die.
04:38And now this was becoming personal.
04:43My sister is a local GP.
04:45She'd decided to volunteer in overstretched COVID wards in New York.
04:51I was proud of her, but worried for her too.
04:54So yeah, I have a friend who works at an inner-city hospital in New York.
05:01She's told me that the hospital is not safe
05:04and that it's a very dire situation.
05:09And she's told me that it is like an apocalypse down there.
05:19I wanted to see this crisis for myself.
05:23As a journalist, I was allowed to travel.
05:27I've covered a lot of wars and conflict all over the world for 25 years
05:32and I've seen a lot of death.
05:34But I've never witnessed anything like this in the Western world.
05:38Tens of thousands of people have died of this pandemic in a matter of weeks.
05:48This was a 300-mile journey on roads that were virtually deserted.
05:54Queensbury, a town three and a half hours north of New York City.
05:59And my first glimpse of what was to come.
06:04These were the bodies of New Yorkers,
06:06buried out of the city in their hundreds by volunteer David Penipent.
06:12So many were dying in April that the city was short of space to cremate them.
06:18In the past year, we've seen a lot of people die.
06:21So I decided to go to Queensbury and cremate them.
06:26In the past three weeks after this week,
06:28I have made 600 human remains, brought them to various crematories.
06:37Yeah, it's beyond belief down there what I'm seeing.
06:41It's just beyond belief.
06:42Arriving in New York was intimidating.
06:46I was driving into the heart of the pandemic.
06:51The city streets were eerie, empty.
06:59As I got there, I witnessed what's become the ritual,
07:02a cheer for health workers.
07:05Here, it happens every night.
07:07I got here at seven o'clock, right as the whole city is doing their evening shouting.
07:14It's amazing, you can hear it all around.
07:37This city has seen more COVID deaths than most countries.
07:43Around 8,000 people have died in London, which has a similar population.
07:50In New York, it's over 21,000,
07:54more than five times as many deaths as in the whole state of California.
08:02Central Park hosts a field hospital.
08:05This is completely surreal.
08:07I mean, this is Times Square,
08:09the normally throbbing, crazy heartbeat of New York.
08:13And it's almost completely quiet here.
08:20I'm standing here in the wealthiest nation on Earth,
08:24the country with some of the best hospitals and scientists in the world.
08:30The question is, how did this place become the frontline of the global pandemic?
08:39At the start of the crisis, hospitals were closed to visitors and cameras.
08:44As pictures emerged, the pressures on staff were clear.
08:49So I asked the doctors I'd been talking to, including my sister,
08:53if they could catalogue their days without disturbing their work or filming patients.
08:58I have a number of patients who are manual labourers and they have just,
09:05they're literally bedridden and you can't even sit them up without them
09:11developing laboured breathing.
09:13Dr Rob Gore worked in a COVID emergency ward in Brooklyn.
09:18The rising body count was alarming.
09:21Just coming off of one of the toughest shifts that I've had in a long, long time.
09:28I've seen quite a few deaths over the past couple of days and it starts to wear on you.
09:36I've seen a lot of tragedy. I've seen a lot of disaster.
09:39I worked in Haiti pre-earthquake and post-earthquake and saw a lot of people dying
09:43from illnesses and injuries or complications of injuries.
09:48I've never seen anything like that before.
09:50So another day in the COVID crisis.
09:53Many doctors were short of the basic equipment they needed to do their jobs.
09:58Dr Anush Shah worked across six different hospitals in neighbouring New Jersey.
10:03Here's the morgue. We're still seeing a lot of deaths in the small hospital
10:08and you get numb to it, you know. We are seeing it so frequently.
10:19I didn't want to see another death today.
10:23I did not want to see a death today.
10:29Never imagined that in this country that we would not have simple,
10:33like mask and simple gowns and we would not have I.V. line.
10:36We are like soldiers at the front line.
10:40Government and health care organizations should have stepped up way more.
10:43They should have been prepared for a pandemic.
10:48In March, the rate of new infections began soaring, doubling at times by the day.
10:54We were looking at a freight train coming across the country.
10:58We're now looking at a bullet train.
11:01Just six weeks earlier, New York's Governor Cuomo,
11:04a Democrat, had been dismissive about the threat of the virus.
11:09Catching the flu right now is a much greater risk
11:13than anything that has anything to do with coronavirus.
11:17The White House had been warned as early as January
11:19that COVID could take half a million American lives.
11:24The Trump administration says it will now bar foreign nationals
11:28entering the United States if they've been here to China.
11:32President Trump shot down flights from China in early February.
11:38And continued campaigning for November's elections.
11:42His message to Americans, relax.
11:46We have done an incredible job.
11:48We're going to continue.
11:50It's going to disappear one day.
11:52It's like a miracle.
11:52It will disappear.
11:56What the president had not done was shut down flights from Europe.
12:00That would take six more weeks.
12:03During that critical period in February and March,
12:06the virus spread across the city unchecked.
12:11New York, about twice as crowded as London, the perfect breeding ground.
12:17The governor pointed the finger at Washington.
12:20January, February, March, three million Europeans travel to New York state.
12:30Three million.
12:33And there was a critical lack of COVID testing.
12:38The governor begged the president to help step it up.
12:42The federal government here let the city down.
12:45It didn't stop travel from Europe when it should have.
12:48It didn't provide access to diagnostic tests when it should have.
12:52And because of that, New York City was flying blind.
12:55It didn't realize that there were thousands and thousands of infections in February.
13:02In the hospitals, there was fury.
13:06We're dying here.
13:07We're seeing our co-workers die.
13:10We can't move forward if we don't look at the errors that we committed in the past.
13:16This administration has blood on its hands.
13:20Every person that continues to die right now, that falls on the federal government.
13:25But the decision on when to start lockdown in New York
13:28belonged not to the president, but to Governor Cuomo.
13:33By the time he gave that order, at least 134 New Yorkers had already died.
13:39Jeff Shaman, a leading epidemiologist,
13:42believes thousands of lives could have been saved in New York
13:45had the city locked down earlier.
13:48We've modeled that.
13:49And if we were to back it up 10 days or 14 days,
13:5214 days back from when they locked down ostensibly here when we started to see it,
13:57is when the first death occurred in the United States,
13:59we would see a tenfold reduction in the number of cases.
14:03It didn't have to happen if people were proactive.
14:06Closing New York earlier before any deaths would have been a huge call.
14:14But San Francisco's leaders did exactly that.
14:19San Francisco is a smaller city, not as crowded or poor.
14:23Still, fewer than 50 people have died there.
14:28I mean, it has me screaming at the walls in my house.
14:30I'm publishing information that actually shows what the problem is.
14:33And we were ignored.
14:35In February, there was ample evidence that this thing was spreading very aggressively.
14:39And that if we had acted earlier and sooner,
14:42that we could have ramped up the war production ask.
14:44That we could have gotten companies to build test kits and got them deployed en masse
14:50and put ourselves in a position to be prep for it.
14:54A month later, nearly 16,000 people had died.
14:59But that's not the whole story.
15:01In places like this, parts of Brooklyn and the Bronx, where it's mainly Black and Latino,
15:07people have died at twice the rate of white New Yorkers.
15:11It's crowded and poor here.
15:14People are far more likely to suffer ill health.
15:19I got a call from David Penipent, the mortuary professor who I'd met in Queensbury.
15:25He'd had a very interesting conversation with me.
15:28He'd had an emergency and had asked me to meet him at an undertaker's in Brooklyn.
15:48The situation that awaited seemed almost too macabre to be true.
15:58These ordinary rental trucks parked on the busy high street contained dozens of bodies.
16:04The vans were being used as temporary storage space by the local funeral director,
16:09whose chapel already stored over a hundred.
16:14This is New York City and there are truckloads of bodies unrefrigerated on the side of a road.
16:22What this says is that this crisis is completely out of control.
16:25There have been many days throughout this when hundreds of people have died
16:30in just a 24-hour period.
16:32This is what it's come to.
16:37The crisis only came to light when the neighbours complained about the smell.
16:43This grieving daughter couldn't put it into words.
16:47My last visual is watching my mother take her last breath.
16:50So right here, it's too much for me.
16:52I'm trying to speak to y'all but I am so crowded right now because it hurts.
16:56It hurts.
16:56There's no words for hurtfulness.
17:02It was now up to David to move the bodies to a proper place of rest.
17:08Do you find this disturbing at all, what happened here?
17:11Very upsetting.
17:13I'm not going to deny it.
17:14I'm not going to sugarcoat this in any way.
17:17Very upsetting.
17:19What do you say to the families of these people?
17:22I basically say to these families, this is a good funeral director.
17:27He just became very overwhelmed and when he reached out to me, he was almost in tears.
17:32Please help me, please help me.
17:34His voice was breaking up.
17:35He was very, very saddened by what was happening.
17:40Grief has consumed this city.
17:43So many relatives of the thousands who died, reliving the trauma, wondering why.
17:53Beatriz Núñez is one.
17:55She lives here in Brooklyn.
17:58In March, her fiancé Jorge began showing COVID symptoms.
18:02But there was a shortage of tests in the city and she says the hospital didn't test him.
18:08He had had a temperature of 106.
18:09He was completely delirious and you still couldn't get him a test?
18:13No.
18:14Unless he had to be admitted and intubated, they would not test him.
18:17Hospitals in these parts of New York, overstretched at the best of times, were struggling to cope.
18:24Jorge was discharged the same day.
18:27He went home in an Uber.
18:29The hospital told us it gives all patients the appropriate treatment.
18:34He couldn't even stand up straight.
18:35When he came home from the hospital, I had to physically carry him upstairs.
18:42At home, a few days later, Jorge was admitted to the hospital.
18:47Jorge's condition still wasn't improving.
18:50He asked if he could have a cup of tea.
18:53Which for us was even weird because he is not a tea drinker.
18:57And when his mom went to give it to him, because it was already cooled down, I don't know,
19:01maybe 10 minutes or so, and she realized he wasn't breathing.
19:05And that's when she called me and I ran to him and, you know, I called 911 and I was
19:11doing the CPR.
19:12But honestly, in my heart, he was already gone.
19:15He realized that he wasn't breathing.
19:16He was already dead.
19:18Jorge died of suspected COVID.
19:21He left behind a son, Logan, who was just turning two.
19:26He doesn't understand, but he for sure knows something's different.
19:32He asked for his dad all the time.
19:35He was extremely close to his dad.
19:38I'm sorry.
19:45Once again, the meals will be here shortly.
19:50But come get your hand sanitizer and your face mask.
19:58In the Bronx, New York's poorest borough, a food handout.
20:04This area was hit hardest by the disease and now too by the effects of lockdown.
20:10Almost a million New Yorkers are out of work.
20:1340 million unemployed across the nation.
20:18There's been nothing like this since the Great Depression.
20:21Here, many are down to their last pennies.
20:25Usually, when I have no more money left, I come here to the center to get food or I eat
20:34less food.
20:37Let's practice social distancing.
20:40Let's practice safety.
20:44The city, still in lockdown, is poised to start slowly reopening next week.
20:50Infections in New York have now decreased massively.
20:53But over 200 people died here of COVID last week.
20:58And many worry about a second wave.
21:01It's now four weeks since coronavirus cases in New York reached their peak.
21:06I've left New York and I'm back on the road.
21:10What I saw and learned in New York is really disturbing.
21:16The scale of the death, the chaos.
21:18But I also understand that if you come to New York and you don't know what's going on,
21:25the chaos.
21:27But I also understand that if you come from a part of the country that hasn't been as
21:32badly affected, you might see things differently.
21:37Most states have been in some form of lockdown,
21:40but none have been hit on anything like the scale of New York.
21:47Ten states have had fewer than 100 deaths.
21:54This is New Hampshire.
21:56It's not far from New York state, but fewer than 250 people have died here.
22:03Wow, this place is open.
22:08It's amazing.
22:10I haven't seen this before.
22:13I visited just as lockdown was partially lifted in mid-May.
22:18Similarly to the UK, people here had been asked to only leave their homes
22:23for essential reasons.
22:25And today, finally, a breath of relief.
22:28Outdoor markets and many shops and salons are reopening.
22:34The government does not have the right to restrict assemblies of any kind.
22:39But for these protesters, it's not enough.
22:42They want everything open and they want it now.
22:46The restrictions should be lifted completely.
22:48There's no state of emergency.
22:49We did have one, but the emergency is gone.
22:52It's time to get back to normal.
22:53Not a new normal, the old normal.
22:56As of yesterday, it's 183,000 people out of work in New Hampshire,
23:01out of a working population of 775,000.
23:04That's a huge price to pay for these decisions.
23:08We have our freedoms and we're willing to fight for it if we have to.
23:13I love President Trump.
23:14I bless him and I bless his family.
23:18The pace of reopening America has become a massive political issue in an election year.
23:24A lot of Americans are absolutely craving this,
23:27a chance to get out into the sunshine.
23:30And they want their jobs back.
23:31Many are thrilled that the president is saying it's time to open America back up.
23:38President Trump has chosen a powerful electioneering message to rally his base.
23:44Until all this, President Trump's strongest electoral card was America's booming economy.
23:51But now there are warnings of a 30% downturn, which could be politically devastating.
23:57President Trump has signalled his support for these protests from the outset.
24:02These are people expressing their views.
24:04I see where they are and I see the way they're working.
24:07And they seem to be very responsible for the way they're working.
24:10I see where they are and I see the way they're working.
24:12They seem to be very responsible people to me.
24:20In May, the president supported armed protesters who'd invaded the state capital in Michigan,
24:26where there'd been almost 4,000 COVID deaths,
24:29saying the protesters were good people and the governor should give a little.
24:34Mary Revaud, a hairdresser here in New Hampshire, thinks Donald Trump's great.
24:39She's just officially opened her salon for the first time since March.
24:43Good morning.
24:44Good morning.
24:46But today she can only take one customer at a time.
24:50Mary's infuriated that the virus is still, months on, cramping her style and killing her business.
24:56So my love, this is the way where I have to have everybody in the room.
25:01This is the way where I have to have everybody sign so you can't sue me for, you know, coronavirus.
25:10I know, it's ridiculous.
25:12Perfect.
25:12For Mary, the horror stories of New York are a world away.
25:17Do you remember back in the day, my mom was telling me about this,
25:20like they used to have chicken pox parties where you'd like,
25:23literally invite every kid in the neighborhood so everybody would get chicken pox at the same time.
25:27I feel like we need to have a corona party.
25:29I know, I know.
25:30I'll bring the corona.
25:33Mary believes the president has handled the pandemic well.
25:36The White House has increased testing, outlined science-based guidelines for reopening,
25:41and is sending millions of Americans stimulus checks with the president's name on them.
25:47I think most business people realize that this, he's doing far more than most politicians.
25:55Where are the Democrats now?
25:56Nobody's helping.
25:58I support him 110%.
26:00I don't have a lot of people that I know that have been sick.
26:04And if the numbers are like they're saying they are, they're obviously all in New York.
26:09But why in New York did it get hit so hard?
26:11Is it because we have a lot of people that aren't there legally?
26:14Is it because we have thousands of people like living on top of each other?
26:20The president can exert pressure for America to reopen,
26:24but it's state politicians who make the decisions.
26:28Representative Tim Lang says they're reopening cautiously here, in line with the science.
26:35Every one of our recommendations are being reviewed by our state epidemiologist,
26:38a nonpartisan person who's looking at for strictly public health concerns.
26:43If we wanted to open probably a large concert venue with 10,000 seats we talked about,
26:48I bet you they would tell us no.
26:50So if the infection numbers go up, you'll start to close down again?
26:53I will say if the numbers go up, we will,
26:56the governor will consider moving backwards if necessary.
27:01Now all 50 American states are starting to reopen.
27:06In just over half, New Hampshire included, infections are decreasing.
27:11But in many states, infections have been steadily rising.
27:15On last week's holiday weekend, the beaches were packed, as if none of this had ever happened.
27:22Once again, the American scientific community is sounding the alarm.
27:28We have to remember, though, that coming out too soon could set us back,
27:32could mean a large resurgence of cases that damages not only lives, but also our economy.
27:38We are seeing activities in some places that worry people together,
27:43in enclosed spaces with no face masks on, in communities where the virus is spreading.
27:49That's a really risky thing to do.
27:50Do you think the pandemic is being politicized by the White House?
27:55I'm very concerned by some of the political aspects
27:58that are being layered onto what should be scientific decisions.
28:04Scientists warn that 135,000 Americans may be dead by August.
28:09But in the land of the free, each state makes its own choices.
28:15Will America learn the lessons of New York?
28:18Or will election-year politics drown out the scientists, putting America once again in peril?