A call for reason in a time of crisis

TAGHKANIC, New York — My partner. Ed, and I are second-home owners in voluntary exile from Manhattan — and as such, we find ourselves at the center of a gathering storm.

When faced with the task of flattening the coronavirus’ curve, several upstate New York county governments have deemed “weekenders” like us a public-health threat. Adding vitriol to this sentiment, a scattered but vocal minority, using social media as its megaphone, suggests a more divisive solution: Leave — and take your COVID-19 virus with you.

This response flies in the face of us being property owners who are rightfully occupying our homes as responsible neighbors — and most recently, advisories from the State of New York and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On Wednesday, state Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker refuted the White House Coronavirus Task Force’s demand of a 14-day self-quarantine by anyone who's been in New York City and is now staying elsewhere. Zucker has instead called for strict adherence to the CDC’s social-distancing rules, which we adhere to as a matter of course.

It started when Sullivan, Delaware and Greene Counties, all west of our home in Taghkanic in Columbia County, recently issued near-identical news releases on their web and Facebook pages. The rationale: Virus-breeding downstate residents are a threat to Catskill towns’ finite medical resources. Delaware’s with the amped up headline of “A Message to Our Visitors, Weekenders and Second Homeowners,” drew a large response. As of March 25, this posting was shared more than 1,600 times, by almost as many readers in not only New York, but also Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachusetts, and even Florida.

Responses filled with fear sprouted up quickly: “Keep your —— back in the city,” replied one Columbia County resident to my call for reason. “All those city people getting off the train are spreading it everywhere!” exclaimed a rattled correspondent. Another demanded martial law, with soldiers preventing inter-county travel. Meanwhile, an insensitive weekender on the Delaware County Facebook page cited second-home tax dollars as the lifeblood of “your crappy communities.” That’s a dirty bomb of class warfare — and hardly the point.

In darker seriocomic moments, Ed and I have mused about what might become of us urban exiles during a zombie apocalypse. But it’s no longer a joke. We’ve never considered the possibility of being shunned because of our primary ZIP code. It's akin to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, when gay men, regardless of their HIV status or preventive behaviors, were nonetheless stigmatized.

Now, living life in the time of coronavirus, will all urbanites — gay or not — fall prey to a similar crisis of faith? We’re responsible neighbors. And as longtime Manhattanites, we also know a few things about protecting your health in close quarters. In a county that has fewer residents than you’d find in five of our densely populated Upper West Side blocks, responsible distancing and COVID-19 hygiene are very manageable preventions.

There is, however, a level of this debate beyond Purell and rubber gloves. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo recently spoke of a unified New York State – not upstate and downstate, not New York City and the rest of it. In quoting his father the late Gov. Mario Cuomo, he described a proper government as “the sharing of benefits and burdens for the good of all, feeling one another’s pain.” I feel the pain of my scared neighbors. We’re not hiding behind a locked door, sipping Prosecco and snacking on caviar. We’re scared, and we’re in this together. If you need our help, we’re there to provide it.

So far, Ed and I have experienced nothing but goodwill in the offline “real world.” Our snow plow guy has cleared the driveway and the exterminator just left. On Wednesday, when I emerged to buy groceries, cooler heads prevailed at the market than I’ve found among those crazed upper-case Facebook screeds. Almost on cue, an older man greeted me warmly— even though I was carrying “downstate” Whole Foods reusable bags. As COVID-19 rages on, reason and humanity may be diffusing the much deadlier virus of fear.

Still, long after the plague is over, will we forget the animosity of those raw, anonymous ids, who might very well be the same full- or part-time residents who seat us or sit next to us at a reopened restaurant, fix our car, or check us out at Lowe’s with a ready smile? We’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, who isn’t feeling scared and powerless right now?

We just ask for the same faith in return.

Ron Bel Bruno writes about culture, urban living and relationships. He lives in Manhattan.