20200409h Day 100: First 100 Days in a Pandemic Wormhole in NY Daily News Front Page Headlines

Santa Cruz, CA: The New York Daily News was founded in 1919 during the 1918 flu pandemic. It was the first U.S. daily newspaper printed in tabloid format. With a 100 year history, it seems like a good one to review the first 100 days of my universe surfing through what feels to me like a wormhole into a pandemic and back.

The first day front page headline “Out With The Old” could mean many things. The least on people’s mind then would be a warning of an upcoming pandemic that would kill the elderly at the highest level since the 1918 flu pandemic.

Here are the first 100 days of front page headlines from the NY Daily News:

1. Out With The Old
2. How Hate Looks
3. U.S. Kills Top Iran General
4. Iran Vows Payback
5. The Return of Fear
6. N.Y. At Her Best – 20,000 march against hate
7. Bolton: I’m Ready to Sing
8. Iran Hits Back
9. Brit Hits the Fan – Harry, Meghan to Ditch Royal Life
10. Iran Shot Down Jet (accidentally killing 176). PowerBall jackpot $277M
11. She was 92, Sicko (21yo charged with sexual assault and murder of 92yo)
12. Revolving Door Lunacy
13. Sicko’s Lame Defense (21yo denies attack despite video evidence)
14. The Last ‘Stro (foreshadowing a world without major Sports events)
15. May The Farce Be With You! (foreshadowing an epic struggle with truth)
16. Schmear Campaign – Mayor who eats pizza with a fork sparks new fury by TOASTING a fresh bagel
17. The Good News, He’s UNDEFEATED – The Bad News, He’s UNEMPLOYED (foreshadowing a world where even though shelter-in-place keeps more people alive, it kills their means of employment)
18. ‘ICE’ Cold Slap at Bill (New York’s sanctuary city policies come under attack)
19. No ‘Bettor’ Place to Be – Jersey crushes N.Y. in sports gambling
20. Bloomy’s Blitz for Black Votes – Mike Bloomberg Touts mega-bucks for homes, businesses, and poor neighborhoods (Even multi-billionaire Bloomberg can’t fathom the “mega-bucks” stimulus to come)
21. Get Out of My City! (foreshadowing a world with travel restrictions and screening)
22. Close 2 Perfect
23. Wein Stains (about the connection of sexual assault with power and the presidency)
24. Trainwreck (foreshadowing the world and US mishandling of pandemic)
25. Devil Duo
26. Do Not Panic
27. Kobe Bryant – Hoops Legend, 41, killed in helicopter crash (the first of a wave of unexpected celebrity deaths)
28. Chicken Kiev – Mitch refuses to budge on witnesses despite Bolton’s Ukraine bombshell
29. Coward’s End
30. Road Kill – Uber & Lyft doomed cabbie biz; Center of the Storm; Weinstein Sex Games
31. Come on, GOP, it’s your last chance to … Show Some Spine
32. Baby-Faced Butcher
33. No One Would Listen (foreshadowing U.S. and world leader’s ignoring warnings of coming pandemic)
34. City Hall’s ‘Gangsta’ Problem (anti-gang activists accused of acting like a gangster)
35. Caucus Chaos (foreshadowing chaos to come in U.S. presidential election)
36. Who Won? Who Lost? Who Knows! – And This Guy [Trump] Definitely Doesn’t Care
37. Our Long National Nightmare is Over (Far From It) (foreshadowing the coming statement from Trump that the U.S. is going to get back to work, and yet we are likely only in the beginning fight against the coronavirus pandemic)
38. No Safe Haven from ICE
39. The GOP father
40. Trouble at the Polls (more foreshadowing of what is yet to come)
41. ‘Assassin’
42. Gunning for NYPD
43. Pimp & Circumstance – Kerik’s best man ran sex cult at posh college
44. Menace 2 Society
45. Pamper Party Playboy – Accused of drugging, raping underage girls
46. Just Did It
47. Bust in Tessa’s Killing
48. End of the Wein?
49. Stuck in the Middle
50. Cuffed for 30 Hours
51. Bloom Goes the Dynamite
52. Roger & Over
53. Split Happens; Remember the ‘Miracle’
54. Jackpot!
55. Grisly Machete Attack
56. #WeToo
57. School Bus Horror
58. Buggin’ Out! (Second front page about coronavirus pandemic does not appear until Feb. 27)
59. Turnstile Justice (back to jail revolving door); Streets of Death (foreshadowing?)
60. Mask Hysteria
61. Joe Yeah!
62. It’s Here!
63. Go, Joe Rabbit!
64. Smokin’ Joe
65. Bloom and Bust
66. Spread Dread Grows in City
67. Hero Fights for Life (foreshadowing the coronavirus deaths to come from our heroes who are working to save us); Stumped By Disease
68. Way Off Course; N.Y. State of Corona Emergency
69. Time for the Truth; Virus finds a new route into city
70. Cuo-Rona Cleaner; Dow Suffers Worst Drop Ever
71. New Roch-hell – Mile-wide swath of W’chester city shut, schools closed, National Guard deployed
72. War on COVID-19 – President Trump bans all travel from Europe for 30 days
73. Goin’ Bunkers – Mayor de Blasio declares a state of emergency in New York City
74. Anger Goes Viral – Mayor de Blasio came under fire Friday from parents and advocates for keeping city schools open in the face of the coronavirus pandemic
75. Terrible ‘Strain’ – Healthy but panicked people are draining resources. New York has its first two deaths from COVID-19. President Trump tests negative for coronavirus and says he’s totally “normal.”
76. School’s Out – Virus risk forces mayor to send 1.1M kids home for more than a month. Mayor de Blasio announced Sunday that city schools would be closed until at least April 20
77. Last Call – Restaurants, bars shut to limit crowds. Parents grapple with school closures. Trump finally concedes virus’ threat
78. Helter Shelter – Blaz, Cuomo at odds over “quarantine” for city. Streets of Little Italy and rest of city are mostly deserted Tuesday. Mayor de Blasio was ready to order residents to shelter-at-home before Gov. Cuomo ruled against draconian measure.
79. Help is on the Way
80. Send in The Army – With coronavirus cases skyrocketing, deaths doubling and the city in dire need of medical supplies, Mayor de Blasio urges President Trump on Thursday to send in the military for functions like setting up field hospitals before coronavirus cases ravage the city. 
81. Long Pause – Gov. Cuomo shuts down all non-critical staff in New York on Friday for an undetermined period as the state’s coronavirus cases soar. With the worst still to come, Mayor de Blasio begs for medical supplies, personnel.
82. Ground Zero – New York City is the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic with over 8,100 cases. Gov. Cuomo chastizes sunbathing millennials.
83. Coming up Empty – Desperate city gets only more promises from Trump as Congress fails on $1T aid package
84. Javits (Medical) Center
85. Easter Basket Case – Hare-brained Trump wants churches full for holiday – even as he calls NYC ‘very hot spot’
86. Our Grim Reality – “Probably more than half of all New Yorkers will be infected with this disease,” NYC Mayor de Blasio said on Wednesday about coronavirus, noting most would have less serious symptoms. “But for a lot of other people, it’s going to be really tough – and we’re going to lose some people.” The majority of sick patients are under the age of 50. (New York Daily News)
87. Labor Pains – 3.2M people in the United States file for unemployment as coronavirus crushes businesses. (New York Daily News)
88. Fire Kills Rail Hero; Checks are on the way; ‘Death sentence’
89. Getting the RonaRound – Gov. Cuomo questioned the legality of President Trump’s surprise idea to shut down the entire N.Y. metro area before Trump backed down. (New York Daily News)
90. Chow will they survive? – Without financial help soon, many city eateries will die. Jimmy’s Diner in Brooklyn and hundreds of other restaurants across the city wonder if they have served their last meals. (New York Daily News)
91. Hope floats – Navy ship arrives in city to ease strain on hospitals. The Navy Hospital ship Comfort sails into New York Harbor and is welcomes by a grateful crowd (inset) before docking Monday on the West Side. (New York Daily News)
92. “We’re on a suicide mission’ – Bronx hospital staff fights through fears, tears to save lives even as colleague dies. Sean Petty, a pediatric nurse at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, wears his desperate need for a proper mask on his face. Petty is among countless nurses and doctors at city hospitals forced to fight coronavirus pandemic without adequate personal protective equipment. (New York Daily News)
93. Gov Fears 16,000 Dead – The grim state death toll from the coronavirus would dwarf the tally from 9/11. (New York Daily News)
94. Running Out Of Air – In six days, New York will deplete its ventilator supply as cases soar toward 100,000 in the state. (New York Daily News)
95. If Only It Were A Muzzle — President Trump announced on Friday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded all people in the U.S. should wear “a basic cloth or fabric mask” whenever they go outside. Trump said, “I don’t think I’m going to be doing it.” (New York Daily News)
96. Ride On! — MTA getting 250G N95 masks to protect workers from infection. (New York Daily News)
97. COVID-19 fosters new pain – CUNY kids forced from dorm return to city-provided parents. Queens College student Marcus Diego, who grew up in foster care, said it’s cruel to send students back to homes that are not really theirs. (New York Daily News)
98. COVID Field – City eyes Hart Island for mass burials as grim toll nears 3,000. Hart Island north of the Bronx (inset) could be used as temporary resting place for coronavirus victims as funeral homes get overwhelmed. (New York Daily News)
99. Death at Dad’s Door – Brooklyn man, 33, joins grim list of virus victims to die at home after hospital visit. Jorge Cruz of Brooklyn (with son, Logan) died Friday, apparently of COVID-19, after being sent home from hospital. Now his 2-year-old also has the disease, along with the tot’s mother. (New York Daily News)
100. Out Of Order — On March 12, the courtroom of Brooklyn Judge Johnny Baynes was jammed. He died of complications from COVID-19 two weeks later. (New York Daily News)

As I read through the headlines, it was interesting to see how delayed the news was to covering the coronavirus pandemic as it was raging away in China and entering the US. Since the NY Daily News is a local paper, it can only feel the virus when it is local. This is similar to universe surfing in that we can really only feel the universe we are in. It is very difficult to quantum sense other universes, especially those that are far away. I would bet that the reporters and writers did quantum sense in January what was coming, and yet were too wrapped up in the matrix of the universe to write about what they were sensing. It is a hard enough to quantum sense and even more difficult to make a classical decision in the universe you are in that doesn’t align well with all of the other classical stuff going on in your universe. A ‘hack’ I use is to acknowledge that what I am sensing is a “quantum” variety, and not of this particular universe. Then, I feel like I can access it more readily and it requires less free will to talk about.

Author: J. Sands Loch

Student and teacher of reality in all its forms. I self-published my personal experience of discovering and trying to understand and use a model of reality based on the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics: Surfing the Multiverse: Finding Happiness One Universe at a Time Available on Kindle and from Amazon, and found in blog post form at: SurfingTheUniverse.com View all posts by J. Sands Loch