Omicron Is Overwhelming New York’s Quarantine Hotel System
NEW YORK — For much of the pandemic, one way that the city has tried to slow the coronavirus’s spread is by offering free hotel rooms to infected people who cannot easily isolate themselves from those they live with.
Three people who tried to take advantage of the main hotel-quarantine system said Thursday that they either had waited days before getting a room, given up and paid for one themselves, or been stuck on hold for hours on a city hotline without anyone ever picking up. Others have posted messages on Twitter about their own long waits.
The hotel program, which the city calls “the only free, major hotel isolation program in the country,” started in June 2020 with 1,200 rooms. A spokesperson for the Test and Trace Corps, the unit of the city Health and Hospitals agency that runs the program, said Friday that nearly 30,000 people had used the hotels so far.
Finally, Guo said, on Monday — about four days after the second roommate tested positive — one of the four was transferred to a line where a recording said there were 150 people ahead of her on hold. Three hours later, a dispatcher picked up and said the city would send someone to bring the sick roommate to a hotel.Calls to the hotline Friday were answered by a recording asking that the caller leave a message.
“We paid out of pocket, which is super annoying, but it had to be done,” said Barberis, who lives in lower Manhattan. “I can imagine that for people who had less financial flexibility, it would be impossible.”The shelter system has a separate network of hotels it rents quarantine rooms from. On Wednesday, the city Department of Homeless Services said there were 400 vacant quarantine and isolation beds available in those hotels.
“It’s appalling, the way as human beings — and as a taxpayer — that we have to live,” said the second woman, who is 62, works at UPS and also has chronic asthma. She spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by shelter workers.