‘INCREDIBLY DISHEARTENING’

New York Barber Who Ignored Shutdown Order Was Hospitalized With Coronavirus

Health officials say Joseph LaLima was giving haircuts for weeks and anyone who used his services should now get tested.

A New York barber who defied the state’s shutdown order and gave haircuts from his own home spent four days in the hospital after contracting COVID-19. But even after his release on Friday, the Kingston resident, Joseph LaLima, insisted he had not violated Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s shutdown order because he had not performed his work in the barber shop. “He said do not open up your shops, barbershops, beauty parlors, nail salons, tattoo parlors. So I didn’t,” LaLima was quoted as saying by The New York Times. Health officials in Ulster County have now issued a public health notice urging anyone who has gotten a haircut from LaLima in the past three weeks to get tested for the virus. Ulster County Health Commissioner Dr. Carol Smith called it “incredibly disheartening” to learn that “a barbershop has been operating illicitly for weeks with a COVID-19 positive employee.”