Posted on August 25, 2020 by Giselle Routhier and Dave Giffen in New York Daily News New York Daily News, By Giselle Routhier and Dave Giffen While the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our city is complex and far-reaching, the guiding principle behind our collective response to it must remain unchanged: Do everything we can to save lives. Whatever successes we have had toward that end have been the result of decisions based on both clear-eyed rationality and basic human compassion. That’s why it is so distressing to hear voices of callous intolerance in neighborhoods like the Upper West Side, where a number of homeless individuals have been temporarily relocated in order to protect them from this deadly virus. “Deadly” is not an exaggeration: The age-adjusted mortality rate for homeless single adults sleeping in congregate shelters is in fact 79 percent higher than it is for New Yorkers as a whole.
