Briefing 5/13: More Deaths, A Lawsuit, Open Streets, & Small Business Relief Bills

It’s Wednesday! The coronavirus is still out there, so please remember to practice social distancing and keep wearing a mask. Here are some new numbers as of this afternoon:

• There were 887 new confirmed coronavirus cases in NYC, compared to the 657 cases from yesterday, bringing the total number of cases in the City to 185,206. In Brooklyn, there were 267 new confirmed cases, compared to the 214 cases from yesterday, bringing the total to 50,346 in the borough.
• The total number of hospitalizations has gone up to 49,307 in the City. As for deaths, there were 132 new confirmed coronavirus-related deaths in NYC, compared to the 173 deaths from yesterday, bringing the total number of confirmed coronavirus-related deaths to 15,233, with another 5,083 probable deaths. In Brooklyn, the number of confirmed deaths is now 4,636.
• Georgianna Glose, a nun and activist for the poor, who ran a non-profit on Myrtle Avenue, died from the coronavirus. She was also whistle-blower in a sex abuse scandal. She was 73.“ She was able to live in both worlds: the world of making a difference for individual families and the world of making policy changes,” said Steven Banks, the city’s commissioner of social services, told the NY Times.
• The family of Angela Rodriguez says her body was among about 100 bodies found stacked on top of each other last month at the Andrew Cleckly Funeral Home in Brooklyn. Now, they are planning to sue. “Angela Rodriguez was a living, breathing human, she wasn’t just some piece of trash that could be discarded because she had passed away,” the family’s attorney told ABC7.
• Michael Armstrong, the publisher of Brooklyn’s The Phoenix Newspaper, died from the coronavirus. He was 79. His wife died one month before him also because of the coronavirus, the NY Times reported.
• The City Council passed numerous small business relief bills, we reported. The bills, part of the COVID-19 Relief Package, include capping delivery app fees at 5%, or 15% when the app provides a delivery worker, the waiving and refunding of certain sidewalk cafe fees, fines for delivery apps that charge restaurants for phone calls in which no orders take place, and personal liability provisions to leases of commercial tenants.
• This morning Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the next installment of open streets, one short block at a time, and concentrated in the neighborhoods least hit by the coronavirus, from what we can tell, we reported this afternoon.
• Garbage pickups dove deeper in April as New Yorkers ditched town or dug in, THE CITY reported.