Isolation hotel residents drained by "crippling" solitude

NEW YORK (AP) — Richard Schuster has faced combat, cancer and addiction, and after his most recent stint in rehab, he’s come away standing every time. The 42-year-old Air Force veteran has long believed himself “bigger, tougher, faster and stronger than anything that could get me.”

For the past month in Times Square, the deafening silence of a 3-star hotel room has shaken the COVID-19 patient to the point of tears.

“This can really break somebody,” he said.

Hotels across New York City have been transformed from tourist destinations to lonely barracks for people who need a place to quarantine. Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that 1,200 rooms are available now. That will ramp up to 3,000 in the coming months.

New York is offering free stays to residents who can’t isolate where they live, both for patients and frontline workers in the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States. The program is expected to widen as the city gears up a vastly expanded effort to find people who had contact with an infected person and make sure those contacts don’t expose anyone else.

The city is renting out entire hotels so those isolating are the only guests, and it's providing food, laundry, medical services and access to mental health professionals.

Yet there's little to offset residents' loneliness. Social distancing rules must still be followed — no parties in the lobby or gathering in rooms — and residents are keeping to themselves.

The solitary stay has Schuster counting the days until he can return to the addiction center for veterans where he had been living.

“It’s crippling emotionally, being in a place like this if you don’t have that emotional fortitude and strength to pick yourself up,” Schuster said.

Schuster is among about 35 people staying...