Whose Streets? Our streets!
The coronavirus pandemic put “the city that never sleeps” into a self-induced coma. Those who could, worked from home, doing their part to stop the spread of this new and mysterious disease. Schools went online. Broadway went silent. Suddenly you could jaywalk on 42nd Street at rush hour. For a time, it seemed all social activity stopped and everything was closed except grocery stores, hospitals and walk in clinics, where people lined up around the block for testing. While I’ve covered many political battles as a New York-based correspondent for Al Jazeera, this was the first time reporting from my home city felt like being in a war zone. No bombs fell, of course, but people hunkered down as if we were under attack. The deadly virus seemed to lurk around every corner. At dusk, cheers rang out across the city in honour of health care workers. At night, the only sound was sirens. New York became the epicentre of the disease as it infected the United States so in addition to becoming the main story we followed, it affected every aspect of how we reported the news. I broadcast the daily death toll from a camera position on the roof of my apartment building while my kids did school online at my kitchen table. Like other media outlets, we turned to Zoom and Skype to connect with people and tell their stories. We were able to connect with a woman in Arizona who was frantically trying to get assurances about her mother’s care in a nursing home and a nurse
Whose Streets? Our streets! Kristen Saloomey | Al Jazeera Correspondent - USA
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