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Coronavirus Update From New York City: December 3, 2020

I was really hoping that I wouldn’t have to resume my weekly updates on the coronavirus ever again. But alas, here I am, resuming my weekly updates on this virus.

While there are still many places in much worse shape than my city and my state, we are trending in a very bad direction. Just a few weeks ago the COVID test positivity rate in my zip code was quite low, but now we are at a positivity rate of 6.5%. Given that we are trending in a direction that could lead to many more hospitalizations and deaths (deaths being a lagging indicator but an indicator that’s also starting to go in the wrong direction in New York State), it seems like a good time to restart my weekly updates.

Another reason I’m restarting my weekly updates is that, even though we’re not quite the center of the COVID universe in terms of cases and deaths right now (though if numbers keep on trending the way that they are, I fear we will be in bad shape before long), we still seem to be at the center of the American universe (or at least a center) when it comes to questions over COVID-related restrictions. Two instances where my city was at the center of questions about COVID restrictions were with the closure of schools citywide and the restrictions on the number of people attending religious gatherings in COVID hotspots.

With regards to the school closures, the public schools had a hybrid of in-person and online learning at the start of the school year, with schools in COVID hotspots (or schools with COVID issues) going fully online until those issues with COVID were resolved. However, with COVID rates spiking in New York City, a decision was made to go fully online for now. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has received significant criticism for this move, which perhaps explains why there’s work towards schools reopening again for hybrid learning in the coming days.[1] We’ll see how that goes.

With regards to the restrictions on the number of people attending religious gatherings in COVID hotspots, what happened was that entities of various kinds, from religious gatherings to non-essential businesses, faced various restrictions if COVID were bad enough (based on the test positivity rate) to warrant placement in an “orange” or “red” zone. In the case of religious gatherings, they were limited to 25 people in orange zones and 10 people in red zones. These restrictions were controversially struck down by the Supreme Court.[2] My thoughts on this are…complicated. Personally, I think that it was rather bizarre to have such arbitrary numbers for the number of people allowed to attend religious gatherings, regardless of the size of the religious building (whether it be a large cathedral like St. Patrick’s or a smaller church like the one I go to every Sunday)–it would have been better in my humble opinion if the capacity limits were determined by percentages (33% of space capacity, 25% of space capacity, etc.) instead of arbitrary numbers that applied to religious spaces of all sizes. That being said, I don’t see eye-to-eye with the argument made by the religious institution I am a part of,[3] and by extension the Supreme Court’s argument, that this is an issue of religious freedom for Catholics[4]–the real infringement on this freedom is if we don’t take the proper precautions, get ourselves and each other sick, and then prevent ourselves and others from feeling up to a vibrant exercise of our religion. In other words, the attack on religious freedom, at least in my own humble opinion, is from the virus itself and those unwilling to take basic precautions against it. I would also add that with the existence of televised and online Masses where you can even receive the most important sacrament (the Eucharist) spiritually,[5] I have a hard time seeing how being forced to watch a Mass virtually for the sake of COVID precautions crosses the line from “not ideal” to an attack on religious liberty. Maybe someone can enlighten me though, as I know I have readers with substantial amount of knowledge on Catholic theology.

Between the news coming down from the Supreme Court (just in time for major religious celebrations) and the number of people travelling during the holidays, I fear that these numbers are about to get much worse. I hope my fears are inaccurate.

I do have hope though for New York City. This hope comes from the fact that we know so much more about this pandemic now than we did in the spring, and that as a result we hopefully will not have hospital and death rates anywhere near as high as what we did back then. I want my hope to turn into reality, but alas, global pandemics do their own thing and do not listen to any hopes I may have.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/nov/29/new-york-city-public-schools-to-reopen

[2] https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/11/26/scotus-rules-against-ny-religious-gathering-restrictions/

[3] I am a Catholic, and I live in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn. It’s the same diocese that was involved in legal challenges to Governor Cuomo’s restrictions for “red” and “orange” zones.

[4] However, I cannot speak for other denominations of Christianity, let alone other religions.

[5] Catholics have something called Spiritual Communion, where one who desires to physically receive the Eucharist but is unable to because of circumstances can receive the Eucharist spiritually.

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Should Bloggers Blog About Politics?

As my readers, particularly my readers in the United States, would know, we have a presidential election this year.

With the election coming up, some are shamelessly blogging about politics. But many are grappling with how much to blog about politics, or whether to blog about politics at all.

If you are one such person who’s grappling, this blog post is designed for you.

Before going further, let me start by saying that if you don’t think you can handle adversarial comments resulting from what you express in your blog post, it is wisest to not publish your post on politics. Given the divisive nature of American politics (and politics in some other parts of the world), you should be prepared to handle some vitriol in the comments section of your post. It’s not guaranteed to happen, but you should be prepared for it to happen. As I’ve known bloggers brought to their knees (or even quit their blogs) over just a couple nasty comments directed at them, and as I’ve known bloggers whose mental health was negatively affected by vitriolic comments to posts, it is important to honestly assess whether you can handle sharp criticism of your political post before publishing a post on politics.

As to how to assess whether you can handle any level of challenging response to your political post, what I would recommend is this: think about how you’ve handled situations where you were in a contentious discussion online, assuming you’ve been in such a situation before (whether it be your blog, social media, or something else). If you didn’t respond well in other online situations where there was a contentious discussion, then you likely won’t respond well to it from strangers on the internet upon publishing a political post.

If you think you can handle difficult comments on a political blog post you publish, then you might be okay with publishing blog posts about politics. However, before determining for sure whether you should blog about politics, there’s one more question you must answer for yourself: What do you hope to achieve with your blog posts about politics?

If your goal is simply to vent about the current political affairs or to make your readers know where you stand on an election race, then all you need to do is write and then hit the “publish” button. Once you publish, you have achieved your goal.

If your goal is to educate people on an election issue or contest, you need to think about whether your potential post accomplishes this. If so, you can publish. If not, you shouldn’t hit the “publish” button. This is a judgement call you would have to make, and a judgement call I frequently have to make.

If your goal is to sway people to “your side,” you will likely walk away disappointed if you weigh into a race or issue where very few people are undecided. If few people are undecided about how to vote to begin with, for example, then you have few people to sway. However, I must add that if you weigh in on a political issue or race where a lot of people are undecided, then people reading your rationale for voting for a candidate or supporting an issue may be helpful to your readers.

If your goal is to grow your blog’s following through writing about politics, a blog post on politics may actually be one of the last things you want to do. Readers can, and have, unfollowed blogs because of a post on politics that one took issue with. In fact, when considering whether to publish a post on politics, you should ask yourself whether it’s a post you’d be willing to lose a couple or even a few of your readers over (and if not, don’t publish).

To sum things up, when considering whether to publish a blog post on politics, the following should be taken into consideration:

  • Whether you can handle the potential vitriol that comes from responses to the post
  • What you hope to achieve through your blog posts on politics, and whether that hope is attainable through publishing your blog post
  • Whether you would be willing to lose a couple or even a few of your readers over the political post you make

If you’ve published blog posts on politics, and have other things you’d like to add to what I said here, please comment below! I’m more than happy to hear tips from others, as well as questions from people who are unsure of whether to blog about politics.

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I Will Write Some Posts on Blogging Advice

Not too long ago, I accepted another blogging award. Between the blogging awards I’ve received and the fact that my following is growing, I am aware that aspiring bloggers may look to people like me for blogging advice.

I am more than happy to give advice. So, that is what I will do.

My blog advice posts will tackle questions that seem to nag many bloggers, regardless of how experienced the blogger is. I will address common questions such as how to handle comments and how to grow your audience. Additionally, as I have experience blogging on contentious subjects, I will also give blog tips related to blogging on contentious subjects. In fact, my tips related to blogging on contentious subjects is what I think will make my blog advice distinctive—I know many bloggers who give blog tips, but significantly fewer who give tips on how to blog on contentious issues.

As to how frequently people should expect me to publish posts on blog advice, I’m not 100% sure. However, my guess is that I will publish a post on blog tips on a Thursday every 1-2 months or so—just enough that there’s some regularity to these posts, but not so frequent that it replaces “blind injustices” as the central theme of my blog.

I look forward to doing these posts. Blogging tips from others have taught me so much about blogging, and I hope that future generations of bloggers will learn from the tips I share.

If there are any particular blogging questions/blog advice-type issues you’d like me to talk about, please let me know in the comments below!

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My Final Coronavirus Update From New York City (For Now, and Hopefully Forever): June 25, 2020

First of all, I want to apologize to my readers for a late post this evening. I was working a meeting related to where I work, and that meeting ended literally right before I started typing this. Hence, the delay in writing and publishing this post.

I should address the elephant in the room: the title of tonight’s post. I was thinking that I would continue these weekly update posts until we got to about mid-July, which would be a month or so into the reopening process in New York City. I wanted to wait to wind down this series until mid-July because I wanted to see whether the reopening process went safely in the city first. I said all of this in a post about a month ago.

However, a lot has changed in the past month.

Namely, there are now major hotspots emerging in states like Alabama, California, Washington, Florida, and Texas. In contrast, my home state, once the epicenter of the virus, is now one of only four states on track to contain the virus.[1]

This weekly update was created so that readers could get insight into what it was like to be living in a hotspot of this horrid pandemic. However, we are most certainly not a hotspot in New York–in fact, we’re likely one of the safest places to be in right now, from a COVID-19 standpoint. Given how much the situation is under control here, I’ve concluded that these weekly updates have run their course.

This is not to say that the pandemic is over, by any means. Far from it. The end of this series just means that the pandemic is under control enough in my area, at least for the time being, that I didn’t feel it was right to continue these weekly updates. Of course, if the dreaded second wave comes to New York, I would resume my weekly updates. I sincerely hope we don’t have a second wave, though.

Nor should anyone interpret the end of this series as a sign to stop practicing the mask-wearing and the social distancing, even if you live in New York. In fact, this series would be continuing for many weeks to come if not for the fact that so many New Yorkers were on board with wearing their masks and social distancing.

I want to thank all of you, my readers, for being a part of this journey by liking, commenting, and sharing these posts. It has been a wild and at times trying journey, but a journey that I am thankful to have survived in good health, and a journey that I’m glad I documented.

[1] https://covidactnow.org/state/NY?s=56971

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Coronavirus Update From New York City: June 18, 2020

I hope all of my readers are well today, wherever you all may be.

Last week’s post talked about how we in New York City are in Phase One of reopening. As I’m typing this, we’re on the verge of entering Phase Two, which is expected to start next Monday. It came as a bit of a surprise to me, as I had expected to maybe wait until July to get to this phase.

What does this mean? In short, a lot of places will be able to reopen, including many offices, more retail, vehicle sales, and much more. For details on what Phase Two in New York State involves, you can learn about that here.

The reopening process is by no means over (there are four phases, and we’re about to enter Phase Two here), but we have come a long way. We used to have hundreds of deaths a day in New York City alone from the coronavirus, but yesterday, we had 20 new confirmed deaths. Furthermore, our hospitals are nowhere near capacity like they were at the beginning of the pandemic. We are by no means in a perfect place, especially economically, but health-wise, we’re in a much better place than we were a couple of months ago.

And how is that? How has New York seemingly succeeded in curbing the spread of the virus while some other states have failed? While I still strongly believe that we waited too long to act in New York, we also ended up acting aggressively and in-line with the recommendations from public health experts, especially in terms of strongly urging people to wear masks and socially distance. Furthermore, as we are reopening, it’s being made clear that it is not a return to the old normal, but instead a new normal where we socially distance and wear masks; therefore, I don’t think New York State has thus far experienced the spike in cases that many states have experienced as they reopened.

How is COVID-19 in your part of the United States, or your part of the world (if you’re not in the U.S.)? I’m more than happy to hear updates from my readers.