NEW YORK’S HOMETOWN NEWSPAPER

NEXT STOP,PURGATORY

As city tries to imagine

making a comeback, mask-

wearing on the subway

will remain a must, and

continued service cuts will

mean closer contact with the

surging homeless population

and anybody who might be

carrying the dreaded virus.

OB

TA

INE

D B

Y D

AIL

Y N

EW

S

With subways a homeless haven& crews dying, normalcy is far off

COMPLETE COVID-19 COVERAGE PAGES 2-12

NEW YORK’S HOMETOWN NEWSPAPER

Tuesday, April 28, 2020 $2.00SPORTS FINALNYDailyNews.com

4 Tuesday, April 28, 2020 DAILY NEWS NYDailyNews.com

CORONAVIRUS

MTA officials are scrambling to ensureNew York’s subway system doesn’t turninto a rolling petri dish for a new wave ofcoronavirus infections once state offi-cials begin easing lockdown measures.

With nearly 6 million daily commut-ers prepandemic and not enough spaceto sneeze — let alone stand several feetapart — there’s a growing concern that areturn to regular work life will makesome straphangers super-spreaders.

Rules put in place earlier this monththat require subway riders to wear facecoverings are expected to remain inplace for months to come, officials said.But even with the MTA’s best efforts,transit leaders say the public has someresponsibility for containing the virus.

“Customers’ awareness of and en-gagement with their own safety will bekey [to reopening],” said interim NYCTransit President Sarah Feinberg. “Ev-eryone in the system will have a role toplay in keeping our city healthy.”

That message isn’t reassuring toriders who will be dependent on publictransportation to get to work, but fear for

their health.“I am diabetic and I am at real risk.

Riding the subway is dangerous,” saidMarie Balthazar, 58, a home healthattendant. “People are not social distanc-ing and the homeless are everywhere. Ican’t work, I can’t even see my doctor.When the coronavirus is over, then we’llsee.”

Before the pandemic, roughly 8,268subway train trips carried some 5.5million riders a day, a ratio that is tooclose for comfort in the age of socialdistancing.

Metropolitan Transportation Author-ity officials have reached out to healthexperts to determine whether strap-hangers can safely stand less than 6 feetapart if they’re all wearing masks.

Subway ridership has fallen byroughly 93% this month — but projec-tions published by the MTA estimatethat number will tick up to 60% bySeptember.

In order to give those riders space,transit honchos need thousands offrontline workers who have contractedCOVID-19 or been directed to quaran-tine to return to work. The workforceshortage has forced the MTA to reducesubway service by roughly 30% sincelate March.

A second wave of the outbreak couldthrow a wrench in that plan if moreworkers fall ill.

MTA heads plan to expand a programto check the temperatures of transitworkers, and Gov. Cuomo on Mondayannounced that 1,000 MTA employeeswill receive antibody tests this week toestimate how many frontline transitworkers have caught the disease. At least84 MTA employees have died fromcoronavirus, according to officials.

Paloma Martinez, 43, a housekeeperin Brooklyn, said she was last on thesubway two weeks ago — and isn’tlooking forward to riding the systemwhen the lockdown ends.

“It’s crowded, dirty and filled with thehomeless. With the coronavirus it’s toomuch,” she said. “Eventually I’m going tohave to go back to the subway. I have nochoice. I have to go to work.”

The MTA has hired private contrac-tors to ramp up its cleaning efforts toaddress the cleanliness issue. Theagency plans to expand an initiativelaunched in March to disinfect eachsubway car and bus every 72 hours andclean surfaces in stations multiple timesa day.

Transit officials have even toyed withthe idea of installing hand sanitizer

BY KERRY BURKE,

MICHAEL GARTLAND

AND CLAYTON GUSE

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

CCAANN’’TT MMAASSKKTTHHEE DDAANNGGEERRBug may return with regular riders

A prominent Manhattan emergencyroom doctor who had treated a stagger-ing number of coronavirus patientskilled herself in Virginia, authorities saidMonday.

Dr. Lorna Breen, 49, the medicaldirector of New York-Presbyterian AllenHospital’s emergency department, diedby suicide in Charlottesville, a spokes-man for the local police department told

the Daily News.Spokesman Tyler Hawn

said police responded to acall Sunday seeking medicalhelp, and Breen (inset) wasrushed to UVA Health Sys-tem University Hospital butsuccumbed to self-inflicted

injuries.“She gave what she had, and she’s a

casualty of the war in the trenches, as faras I’m concerned,” her father, Dr. PhilipBreen, told The News. “She’s a truehero.”

Breen’s father said the crush ofcoronavirus cases his daughter handledwas overwhelming, and that she herselfbecame ill with COVID-19, though shewent back to work after a week and ahalf. She had no history of depression, hesaid. “She was a very outgoing, veryenergetic person who, I don’t knowwhat snapped, but something blew up inher, and so she ended up taking her ownlife,” he said.

He said his daughter traveled toCharlottesville to stay with her sisterafter the hospital sent her home asecond time. “She stayed home about aweek and a half, but I think she felt guiltyabout not being at work,” her father said.“The last time I talked to her was beforeshe went in for her 12-hour shift that shecouldn’t finish.”

“Just before she went back, she saidthat the ambulance had been waitingoutside the building for over three hourswith sick people. They couldn’t even getthe people out of the ambulances inthere,” he added.

On Monday, Columbia UniversityIrving Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian hailed her tireless devotionto her work. “Dr. Breen is a hero whobrought the highest ideals of medicine tothe challenging front lines of theemergency department,” the statementsaid. “Words cannot convey the sense ofloss we feel today.”

The doctor’s death comes in the wakeof the suicide of another frontlineworker — EMT John Mondello, 23, whotook his own life with a gun thatbelonged to his retired NYPD cop father.His body was found by the shoreline inAstoria, just a few paces from AstoriaPark, on Friday night.

ER doctor onbug front linekills herself

BY JOHN ANNESE

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

DAILY NEWS NYDailyNews.com Tuesday, April 28, 2020 5

CORONAVIRUS

dispensers at every subway station —mirroring an initiative announced inParis earlier this month — but are waryNew York’s riders will damage ordestroy the devices.

The state’s timeline for easing backinto regular life has yet to be fullyrevealed. Cuomo on Monday an-nounced that restrictions will be relaxedin some upstate areas starting May 15,but offered no timetable for downstate.

The city is also trying to address thegrowing number of homeless peoplewho have turned to mass transit forshelter during the pandemic.

Late Monday Mayor de Blasio calledon the MTA to temporarily close 10 trainstations — including Coney Island/Stillwell Ave. in Brooklyn, Jamaica/179thSt. in Queens and World Trade Center inlower Manhattan — to allow for morethorough cleaning.

The MTA will require all individualsto exit trains, and homeless people willbe offered services and a place to sleep byNYPD Homeless Outreach and Depart-ment of Homeless Services, the mayor’soffice said in a statement.

“Happy the city has agreed to do moreto provide safe shelter for homeless NewYorkers as we have been asking formonths. We thank NYPD for their

partnership, and urge City Hall to takeadditional aggressive actions so we canfocus on safely running transit serviceand not providing social services,” saidthe MTA’s chief communications officer,Abbey Collins.

The move comes as multiple photosand videos shared with the Daily Newsin recent weeks paint a troubling pictureunderground. On any given day in anygiven corner of the city’s sprawlingsubway, train cars are filled with peoplewho have nowhere else to go or choosethe subways over the shelter system.

The News on Monday afternoonwitnessed dozens of homeless peoplesprawled out on train cars at Brooklyn’sFlatbush Ave. terminal on the end of theNos. 2 and 5 lines. A pair of cops walkedby the filthy cars but didn’t try todislodge any of the riders.

Jeremiah Macintosh, 53, said condi-tions have gotten much worse during theshutdown.

“It’s hell out here. They tried to kickme off, but I got different ways to getback on,” said Macintosh, who is home-less. “I agree with them, I get off, get out,and I get on the next train. The sheltersare hell with coronavirus. I have no-where else to go.”

MTA and transit union officials have

over the last week blasted the city’sresponse to the growing subway home-less problem, which de Blasio onThursday said was under control.

On Monday, the mayor’s statementsaid the city would open 200 “SafeHaven beds” starting this week “pri-oritized for the most vulnerable unshel-tered New Yorkers living on the streetsand subways.” He also reported “out-reach teams” have had 17,000 “contacts”to talk about COVID-19 with the home-less, with 12 people taken for assessment.No positive cases were reported, thestatement said.

“Mayor de Blasio has to direct thepolice to escort the mentally ill and thehomeless out of the system,” saidTransport Workers Union Local 100President Tony Utano. “This is a life-and-death situation, not a quality-of-lifeissue. They are posing a real healthhazard and a real danger to my members— and to the essential workers who aresupposed to be the only ones using thesystem in the first place.”

An NYPD spokesman said in astatement that the department believes“homelessness is not a crime” and that“officers are patrolling the subways” andenforcing transit rules.

With Rocco Parascandola

/OB

TA

INE

D B

Y D

AIL

Y N

EW

S

Coping with the

homeless is just one

of many problems the

MTA faces when it

comes to the city’s

eventual reopening.

Mayor de Blasio

(below) announced a

“Safe Haven“ plan

Monday to provide

beds for 200

homeless. It was a circle of hell Dante neverimagined.

In a mind-boggling 10-hour periodMonday, subway workers dealt witharson, inappropriate sexual behaviorand human waste from riders who’veturned to mass transit for shelter duringthe coronavirus crisis, Metropolitan

Transportation Authorityofficials said.

The mayhem startedearly: At 1:13 a.m. an “un-ruly passenger” was re-ported masturbating on aNo. 6 train at the PelhamBay Park station at thenorthern end of the linein the Bronx — an inde-cent exposure that trig-gered a brief train delay,an internal MTA reportshows.

At 10 a.m., on the otherend of the city at Brook-lyn’s Flatbush Ave. termi-nal, subway workerscalled cops to remove ahomeless man covered inhuman waste in a traincar at the station. Theentire train was removedfrom service because ofthe filth, according to

another report.An hour later, another homeless rider

was caught lighting pieces of cardboardon fire on a Manhattan-bound No. 2train near the Eastern Parkway-Brook-lyn Museum station. He was arrested,according to MTA officials. The incidentresulted in a 30-minute delay on the line.

“The city has failed our most vulnera-ble who are in desperate need of mentalhealth care and housing services,” inter-im NYC Transit President Sarah Fein-berg said of the chaos. “NYC Transit willcontinue to do everything in our powerto address this important issue, includ-ing working closely with all partners, butit is outrageous that a transportationagency is conducting social services inplace of the city.”

City Hall’s response to the mountingproblem hasn’t changed over the past sixweeks, even as subway crime hasflattened and ridership plummeted byroughly 95%.

“None of our outreach efforts havechanged,” said city Department ofHomeless Services spokesman IsaacMcGinn. “The way we’re helping peopleoff the streets will continue.”

NYPD officials said in a statementthat homelessness is not a crime, andhave offered no solutions.

With Rocco Parascandola

Grim scenesof filth, arson& perversion

BY MICHAEL GARTLAND

AND CLAYTON GUSE

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS