New York Coronavirus Case Spurs Complex Risk Calculus

(Bloomberg) -- After a second case of coronavirus was confirmed in the New York City area Tuesday, public-health officials and corporate risk managers are contending with the ever-more-likely scenario that the disease is spreading in the region, forcing them to confront difficult choices about how to protect people.

The new case, a man from suburban Westchester County who has been hospitalized, is different from the first because it's unclear where he contracted the virus. (The person with the case disclosed last week had been traveling in Iran and has been sequestered in her Manhattan home.) The man recently visited Miami, and he works in the city at a law firm on 42nd Street, near Grand Central Terminal.

The man's travels and daily life -- Does he commute on the Metro North train? Where does he eat lunch? Has he been to the movies lately? -- are now the purview of public-health disease detectives who will attempt to trace his contacts and monitor those who surrounded him, be they strangers or close friends and family.

But in a teeming city like New York, it's almost impossible to cover everything, and it's possible the man contracted the virus from yet another person who's moving about the area still.

City officials have long said that it's likely more cases will crop up and the disease will spread there, as it will everywhere else in the U.S. Now that it appears to be happening, they'll have to decide whether they should take further measures to limit the movement of the population, and companies will have to choose whether to discourage people from coming into work -- just as decision-makers from Beijing to Rome have had to do in the last few weeks.

“We are going to see further introductions into the United States, here there and everywhere,” said William Schaffner, a professor at Vanderbilt University who specializes in infectious disease. “Pretty much all the horses are out of the barn now.”

Social Distancing

Limiting the virus will mean implementing very disruptive social-distancing measures, such as working from home, canceling school when necessary, and staying away from mass gatherings of all sorts, he said.

Already, some of the city's most prominent companies are readying themselves. JPMorgan Chase & Co. is asking thousands of U.S. employees to work from home in a test of a contingency plan to close offices should the coronavirus spread, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

But relying on telecommuting carries its own risks, since employees' home networks can face reliability and security issues. What's more, the restaurant servers and shop clerks of the city can't do their jobs remotely. The building where the Westchester man works in Manhattan remained open Wednesday, though workers there were advised of the situation and some chose to remain home.

It's also unclear how prolonged any efforts to keep people apart would have to be. China has shown progress in curbing the spread of the virus after weeks of sustained government limits on movement. Companies will have to think through whether they can reasonably keep their offices closed for that long of a time.

The organizers of the New York International Auto Show, scheduled for mid-April at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, are holding out hope that they'll be able to go forward with their event, but whether such large-scale gatherings will be possible by then is an open question.

The tough choices aren't limited to businesses. The Bronx's SAR Academy and High School, attended by the daughter of the man diagnosed with coronavirus in New York, was closed Tuesday, citing city policy. If more schools shut down, it will lead to further complications for New Yorkers who don't have backup child care, and it's not even clear that children are prominent carriers of the disease.

Test Case

The Seattle area, the first to face widespread community transmission, is leading the way among American cities on responding to the virus. Officials in King County are buying a motel and setting up modular housing to potentially isolate patients. New York, with its crowded and expensive real estate market, doesn't have that luxury. And even in Seattle, few companies have closed their doors, though REI and F5 Networks Inc. told employees to temporarily work from home this week.

Public-health officials say every American, not just major companies, needs to put backup plans in place should schools and businesses close.

“What is happening now in the United States may be the beginning of what is happening abroad,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “We need to be focused on today -- keeping ourselves and each other safe.”

--With assistance from Michelle Fay Cortez and Robert Langreth.

To contact the reporter on this story: Crayton Harrison in New York at tharrison5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Crayton Harrison at tharrison5@bloomberg.net, Kara Wetzel, Nick Turner

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