People are avoiding taking the trains due to the pandemic and crimes in subways that escalated tremendously. individuals sense that their lives are at stake when it comes to public transportation. Some rather walk miles to place which may require long hours just to evade going to into the subway stations. This is a serious matter because this virus can not only complicate your health but can also be fatal. Coronavirus can be 10x harder on people who already have health problems. When selfish people disobey face mask law and come onto the train without a mask or have it resting on their chin instead of covering their mouth and nose the correct way which can put the other individual lives at risk.

MLA: Goldbaum, Christina  “Riders Ditch The Subway As Fear Spreads”.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/nyregion/coronavirus-subway-public-transit.html?searchResultPosition=1The New York Times,  March 15, 2021.

Summary: In this article, many people of all ages going either to work or school congest bridges and bike lanes in the agitation of Coronavirus spreading throughout the subway stations. In early March near the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak 2020, there had already been nearly 330 people infected in the state. On the grounds of this, riders abandon public transit to protect themselves and their family from any possible exposure to the virus. MTA experts dread what the decrease in riders can do to metropolitan transportation authorities horrifying finances as coronavirus continue to manifest.

Analysis: Christina Goldbaum published this article to express her thoughts on the pandemic being faced and how it affects not only us but New York City’s way of getting around.  MTA’s buses, subways, and trains were greatly depended upon to move individuals from one place to another. After the COVID-19 virus transpired the percentage of ridership decreased immensely. The article gives its readers a different interpretation of things because, Goldbaum was a former foreign freelance journalist whose now a transit reporter covering ferries, buses, commuter rails, bicycles, and all the other ways of getting around New York.

Response: i think christina did a beautiful job at getting her point across. Reading these article i felt that ditching the subway in fear of the spread of COVID-19 was a smart idea because as it spread it will only get worse. Its best to avoid any possible way of contacting Covid-19

MLA: Goldbaum, Christina “The Subway Needs Riders To Save It. Will They?”.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/22/nyregion/nyc-subway-coronavirus.html?searchResultPosition=6 The New York Times, March 22, 2021.

Summary: In this article as the COVID-19 virus unfolded to New York City workers feared for MTA’s financial future as they watched crowds on the platforms slowly vanish. The early last year 2020, conductors Adrienne Crespo witnessed the virus evacuate subway stations of all its riders, infect a vast amount of transit workers, and left MTA with financial debt. Now in 2021, MTA’s debts ease as federal aid and President Biden’s sweeping rescue plan keeps MTA flowing. This eventually leads to the Metropolitan Transportation authority’s endurance depending on two things, the boarding of passengers and their fare. MTA addressed the worries of writers making people feel at peace in subway stations bringing back on the ridership.

Analysis: Christina Goldbaum wrote this article to notify people on how ridership change from before things unraveled with the virus and now. It also emphasizes the seriousness of the post pandemic future of New York City transportation system.  After the author discusses future plans with restoring MTA’s rideship percentage, things slowly shift as masks are being enforced in handed out and subway stations are being closed down at graveyard hours for disinfecting.

Response: this article makes me feel a little relief because MTA is restoring it’s subway stations. Not only are they trying to lower the risk of anyone getting COVID-19 by shutting it down to disinfect, but they are still trying to proceed with future plans to upgrade our transportation carts and buses and they were slightly relieved of debt. 

the reason i chose those article is because i feel like COVID-19 came and changed our lives for the worse and with everyone not taking the masks law seriously people fear getting on transportation and this interfere with the fare. This is important to me because not only my dad works for MTA and it’s scary to think is he going to be safe ? or are we going to catch anything with any little sneezing we already think we have COVID-19 once we feel a little tingle in our throat  we think its COVID-19 I Feel like its safe thing to do right now with subways is keep closing the subway station closed after hours to sterilize the train in order to bring the coronavirus rate down  and have the ridership  increase substantially  to improve their fare and their rides

Dear James Bennet,

I was very interested in what happened with the coronavirus during the year 2020 and wanted to find a paper that could give me more insight. I stumbled across the article “How COVID-19 Slipped China’s Grasp” in The New York Times and the authors were really able to help answer my questions. Chris Buckley, David D. Kirkpatrick, Amy Qin, and Javier C. Hernández wrote a very interesting article and the sequence of events that were written might have been a big shock to most readers. I, however, knew bits and pieces about the SARS epidemic and China’s role in the pandemic but needed clarity on how things unfolded. I believe “How COVID-19 Slipped China’s Grasp” was informal but I also don’t think this piece is for everyone’s eyes.

Learning about what events had happened behind the pandemic, that scientists and laboratories forewarning about the virus but were ignored by China’s government did leave me confused on why. However, not everybody took what China did lightly. In fact, it set people into a rage, including former President Donald Trump. Very inappropriate and racial slurs were vocalized at the Asian community and I truly feel what was written in “How COVID-19 Slipped China’s Grasp”, the same news Trump received, is what began the anti-Asian hate crimes we’re seeing this year. I’ll explain.

Trump made an ignorant comment referring to the disease as the “China virus” and a bunch of more nasty remarks towards China. I’ve seen people around me say similar things, too. Do I believe China played a big part in the global pandemic? Yes. But do I think they deserve the horrible backlash they’ve received? No. I remember going to an Asian-based food restaurant (yea, I was still eating  Chinese food during the lockdown) and there was a sign on their window that read “Please don’t be afraid to order here We don’t have Corona” and I felt so much empathy towards them. Seeing small businesses lose money because people were saying nasty things like “Don’t order Chinese food because you’ll get COVID” or that they were afraid just made me feel bad.

I’m not saying by any means that your article caused people to react this way. But the way some people perceive the information from the article is awful and I don’t agree with it. Asian Americans were being physically attacked, spat on, told to “Go back to their country”. Things that African Americans and other minorities were fighting against, they ended up doing to Asian Americans here in the states as if they really caused this pandemic. The hate was just misdirected and caused a social problem. Asian Americans were used as scapegoats and blamed for the lack of communication between China’s government and ours.

I might be wrong but I think the authors of “How COVID-19 Slipped China’s Grasp”, Buckley, Kirkpatrick, Qin, and Hernández, added some details in there that maybe wasn’t appropriate to share with anybody who pretty much has internet access. And like my professor said, China’s citizens and people of Chinese descent did nothing wrong. They had no control of what their government was and was not doing. People in China, professors, scientists, and laboratories, were actually trying to persuade the government to let the world know of what was happening. I believe you and the authors had good intentions to illustrate what occurred but at the same time, the information this paper contained fueled a lot of hate. 

Sincerely, a reader,

– Isadora B.

Coronavirus placed a huge stress on people globally. It was so little what we were told and people should know the truth, especially if lives are in danger. “How COVID-19 Slipped China’s Grasp” was an illuminative article and did fill in gaps that were missing. But, I wrote this letter because I wanted to tell everyone how I felt about the main article I wrote on and personally wanted to address the negative effects it may have on readers. Seeing people thrown under the bus for something they had no control over doesn’t sit right with me. I hope everyone can see how the two issues relate because racism is not okay regardless of where the anger and frustration stems from.