Monday Bulletin: Virus Spike; Restored Litter Baskets; Volunteers Honored; Potsdam or Bust

A cyclist gets reflective on Amsterdam Avenue. Photo by Adam Frank.

March 29, 2021 Weather: Cloudy, with a high of 54 degrees.

Notices:
Our calendar has local and virtual events.

Monday at 5: A talk on “long-haul Covid” with Dr. Zijian Chen from Mt. Sinai-Beth Israel. Register here.

News:
The pace of vaccinations has been picking up in the city, but so has the pace of Covid-19 infections. New Jersey and New York now rank No. 1 and 2 in new coronavirus infections per capita among U.S. states, the AP reported on Monday morning. “A year after becoming a global epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, New York and New Jersey are back atop the list of U.S. states with the highest rates of infection….Neither New York nor New Jersey is experiencing anything like what they saw last spring, when hospitals — and morgues — were overflowing. And like the rest of the country, both are in a much better place than in January, at the peak of the pandemic’s winter spike…But the lack of improvement or even backsliding in recent weeks has raised concerns that the states are opening too quickly and people are letting down their guard too much, just as potentially more contagious variants of the virus are circulating more widely.

Tipster Melissa G. asked us to shout out Teri Darwish, one of City Council member Helen Rosenthal’s constituent liaisons, who helped restore two street litter baskets that disappeared from 104th and West End Avenue. “Small things make a big difference in how you feel about your neighborhood. Especially cleanliness,” says Melissa. The Department of Sanitation had its 2021 budget cut by $106 million, a spokeswoman confirmed to WSR. “As the city, country and world continue to recover from the pandemic, we look forward to a return of the funding to be able to bring back all the services and programs residents have come to count on,” she said. Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal recently testified before the City Council’s Sanitation Committee asking for full restoration of DSNY’s funding in the 2022 budget.

An Upper West Side woman named Josephine Melecio turned 110 on Friday — and she celebrated with her 86-year-old daughter, CBS reported. What is the secret to her longevity? Her daughter suggested travel and dancing — “she liked to go to different places…and there was always dancing” — but we say, it’s living on the Upper West Side!

From Yahoo: For 25 years, the Church of St. Matthew & St. Timothy, at 26 W. 84th Street, has been providing Sunday meals to parishioners, largely with the volunteer help of senior citizens. When the pandemic locked the seniors down, Monique Soden and Maurice Jones, stepped up to help.

What makes us human? “…standing on two feet, which became habit among our ancestors seven million years ago, according to Ashley Hammond, of the American Museum of Natural History, is a defining aspect of the true human condition. This milestone may have also marked the beginning of slouching, the phrase “stand up straight,” and backache.” With a dash of humor, The New Yorker explains why you may have pandemic back problems and how to prevent and fix them. “The key thing is that you want a setup where you can change your body position every twenty to thirty minutes.”

A 25-year-old Upper West Sider named Will Rose was one of the city-dwellers who took an eight-hour drive from the city for his vaccine. And he wasn’t the only one, USA Today reported. “Officials for both the village of Potsdam as well as the college have said it’s not uncommon to have New Yorkers making the trek for their vaccines, especially when they can’t get one close to where they live… Last week, the site hit a major milestone when it surpassed 50,000 vaccinations. For a town with a year-round population of about 16,000 people, that’s significant.” One said, “It was fun…an adventure,” which she repeated for her second shot!