It's behind a paywall, but I'll give you the highlights: Doctors on front line of worst-hit city in world say it's time to end shutdown
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Dr Samir Farhat's hospital in New York had been at the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in the US. Now, the ICU was almost back to normal and he found himself wondering when the city would be too.
"It's not often I agree with Trump, but I think that we should open up on May 15," said Dr Farhat, who runs the emergency room at New York Community Hospital as well as working as a physician at Mount Sinai Brooklyn.
The New York governor's three-phase plan to end the lockdown will see the city next week begin slowly easing restrictions that have paralysed the Big Apple for months.
But Dr Farhat and doctors at other major New York hospitals who spoke to The Telegraph said their experience on the front line of the crisis had, somewhat unexpectedly, convinced them the city should reopen without delay.
"Hospital census is right down, admissions are too," Dr Farhat said. "Opening up now is a calculated risk we need to take."
Dr Farhat, who specialises in pulmonology, worries that he has not seen the cases of severe asthma, heart attacks and strokes that usually fill his ER beds.
His concern is that the virus has stopped them from seeking medical attention, an unfortunate - and sometimes fatal - consequence of the stay-at-home strategy.
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"While Covid-19 is serious, fear of it is being over-amplified. The public needs to understand that the vast majority of infected people do quite well," he said.
He said he noticed the "wave had crested" at St Barnabas on April 7 - three weeks after the statewide shutdown was ordered. "It was a discrete, noticeable event. Stretchers became available, and the number of arriving Covid-19 patients dropped below the number discharged, transferred or deceased," he said.
"This was striking, because the community I serve is poor. Most work in 'essential,' low-paying jobs where distancing isn't easy. Nevertheless, the wave passed over us, peaked and subsided.
"The way this transpired tells me the ebb and flow had more to do with the natural course of the outbreak than it did with the lockdown," he said.
His observation appeared to be supported by figures released on Wednesday by Governor Andrew Cuomo, which showed the majority of people who are still being hospitalised with the virus across the state were staying at home and not essential workers.
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The data has prompted questions of how effective the lockdown has been and for how much longer it will be necessary.
"Covid-19 is also more prevalent than we think. Many New Yorkers already have the infection, whether they are aware of it or not," Dr Murphy said, referring to a recent antibody sample study which showed that one-in-five residents of New York City had likely already had the virus.
"As of today, over 43 per cent of those tested are positive in The Bronx. We are developing a significant degree of natural herd immunity," he said. "Distancing works, but I am skeptical that it is playing as predominant a role as many think."
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Dr Farhat said he thought a second wave would not be as bad as the first, in part, he offered, because of what doctors have learned. "We are much better prepared now, and have started to figure out what works and what doesn't," he said.
"There is a much greater immunity rate now too," he said, while the elderly population, particularly those in nursing homes, has already been disproportionately affected.
Both talk about the serious longer term effects of a prolonged shutdown. "The lasting impact is what worries me the most," said Dr Murphy.
The lockdown has decimated the economy, a factor both doctors said could hurt both physical and mental health and should not be downplayed.
