There are some sounds that you associate instinctively with certain cities. Mumbai, where I grew up, had the incessant horns of the cars on its roads. London has the sound of the Big Ben, the clocktower at the Palace of Westminster where the Parliament sits. And New York has the sounds of sirens.
The constant whines of sirens are so ubiquitous that most residents don't even notice the sounds, as a police car with its lights blazing races through the city's avenues and streets to reach the scene of a crime.
Sirens have continued to blare in New York for the past two months, but these are not only the piercing shrieks of police cars; many of these are urgent cries of ambulances. You hear them with metronomic regularity, and it is callous not to notice the sounds. The persistent wails float through the streets and reach me in my apartment even with the windows shut tightly. Then, as if to remind us what this is about, at three o'clock on many afternoons, church bells toll, remembering those who have succumbed to the unsparing virus swallowing New Yorkers' lives.
For most of last week, over 700 people died in New York State every 24 hours. As of 15 April, the state has 202,208 confirmed cases, more than the total of any country, except the United States. If there is a silver lining, it is that the state appears to have reached the peak of infections and deaths, and the figures are plateauing, beginning what is hopefully the descent.