Medical historian Howard Markel remembers attending New York City’s St. Patrick’s Day parade back in 2000. As marching bands, dancers, and floats came down Fifth Avenue, sidewalks on either side were jam-packed with spectators. “There was also a great deal of drinking going on that begins hours before the parade,” he says. “And drunk people don’t make good decisions.” He left soon thereafter.
The health risks posed by the annual event, which typically draws some 2 million visitors and 150,000 marchers to Manhattan, became the focus of New York City’s coronavirus outbreak response this week, with New York City mayor Bill de Blasio insisting until Wedenesday that the iconic parade would go on, even as scores of other cities — including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago and even Dublin — canceled their St. Patrick’s Day observances. Finally, shortly before midnight on Wednesday, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that, for the first time in more than 250 years, the parade would be postponed.
