Queens Uber driver died of COVID after he stopped giving rides out of fear of the virus
A Queens Uber driver died of COVID-19, or the novel coronavirus, Tuesday at around 12:30 a.m. after he stopped doing for-hire driving out of fear of contracting the virus.
“Our hearts go out to Anil’s loved ones and to everyone suffering during this unprecedented time,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said.
Anil Subba was a Nepalese immigrant living in Jackson Heights with his wife and three children, including an 11-year old.
He had chosen to stop offering Uber rides just about two weeks before his death because he became afraid of catching COVID-19 after transporting a sick passenger from John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Despite this precaution — which had put on hold his family’s sole source of income — Subba did in fact get sick and he wound up in Elmhurst Hospital, now officially called NYC Health + Hospitals/ Elmhurst.
By the time that Subba died, he had been on a ventilator for two days and the hospital had refused his family from seeing or speaking with him.
“We tried to phone him but nobody was allowed. The family members couldn’t talk to him,” Subba’s cousin Munindra Nembang told The New York Post.
According to Nembang, several other members of the Nepalese community in their area, some of which are also Uber drivers, have contracted the coronavirus.
Read more about this in this article: The New York Post
Elmhurst Hospital suffers 13 deaths in 24 hours
credit: Quinn Dombrowski, Flickr
Thirteen patients died at Elmhurst Hospital within the span of 24 hours a day ago of coronavirus in what was possibly the worst day of the COVID-19 crisis so far.
The New York City hospitals are fast running out of beds and equipment as a rolling stream of new coronavirus patients comes in. Medical workers are being stretched thin, and this series of 13 deaths is a dire consequence of that.
“I want people to know that this is bad. People are dying. We don’t have the tools that we need,” said Elmhurst Hospital’s Dr. Colleen Smith.
Both New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo have called on the federal government to provide the city with more financial and material support, especially in the form of ventilators.
The federal government has promised New York 4,000 ventilators when the city — quickly the epicenter of the pandemic — needs more like 30,000 new ventilators.
Read more about this in this article: CBS New York
Parishioner dies amid COVID-19 outbreak in the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens
The Diocese of Brooklyn, which oversees the two churches in Queens that came out with new COVID-19 cases on the same day last week, has had its first death due to the coronavirus.
The parishioner was an elderly member of Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Jamaica, Queens and had last entered the church on March 15 for the 1 p.m. Mass.
“Our hearts and prayers are with this parish family during this difficult time,” the diocese said in an update.
As of yesterday afternoon, there were 38,977 cases in New York State, 23,000 of which are in the city, and there have been 466 deaths in the state.
Other coronavirus cases have been popping up throughout the diocese’s reach, which spans the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens.
A week ago, news broke that two of the diocese’s churches in Queens, Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church in Woodside and St. Gabriel’s Church in East Elmhurst, had seven COVID-19 cases between them.
The diocese has had several more cases since then, including both parishioners and priests.
The most recent coronavirus update put out by the Diocese of Brooklyn said that, in addition to the one death, there were five new cases from its churches, three of which are in Brooklyn and two in Queens.
These churches are Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Jamaica, St. Patrick’s Church in Long Island City, St. Michael’s Church in Sunset Park, St. Therese of Lisieux Convent and Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Kensington.
The diocese urges any of its members to contact their healthcare provider and follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines if they start showing coronavirus symptoms.
Read more about this in these articles: The Diocese of Brooklyn, Queens County Politics
