With Dr. Craig Spencer in isolation at Bellevue, New York is cleaning up after its first Ebola patient. On Friday, a biohazard company hired by the city scrubbed down some of the places Spencer visited after he began feeling “sluggish” on Tuesday: the Gutter bowling alley in Williamsburg, the Meatball Shop in Greenwich Village, and the West Harlem apartment he shares with his fiancée, Morgan Dixon, who is also at Bellevue under quarantine. “We’ve been waiting for this day,” Bio Recovery Corporation’s Robert Walters told the Huffington Post. Cinematic!
The New York Times reports that in addition to sanitizing Spencer and Dixon’s apartment, the cleanup crew had thrown out the couple’s “sheets, towels and toothbrushes as if they were medical waste.” (Add a trip to Bed Bath & Beyond to the list of things these people now have to deal with.) Meanwhile, their across-the-hall neighbor — self-described “germaphobe” Ricqui Lawrence — did a DYI job by cleaning the hallway, the elevator buttons, and a couple of doorknobs with bleach. (Residents of the building have been told that it’s safe to remain in their homes, but Lawrence told the Times that at least one family was staying elsewhere for a while.)
After being closed for the afternoon, the newly cleansed Meatball Shop reopened on Friday night. “I’m still going to go. [Ebola’s] not an airborne disease,” a meatball-loving dude told the New York Post outside the restaurant. “This place is legendary.” And on Saturday, Mayor de Blasio, Chirlane McCray, and the woman in charge of New York City’s Ebola response, Dr. Mary Bassett, stopped by for lunch:
Via Facebook, the Gutter announced that it would be open for business at noon on Saturday. “It’s bowling as usual,” the venue insisted.
It’s not clear if any special precautions were taken at the High Line’s Blue Bottle Coffee stand, where Spencer grabbed something to drink on Tuesday, but no one seemed very worried about it. “We’re all fine here,” an employee told the Times.
There’s not much anyone can do about the L, A, and 1 trains Spencer took when he was becoming ill, so ride them at your own (basically nonexistent) risk.
