Coronavirus Surge May Be Receding in New York, But Economy Already Impacted

Daily coronavirus cases are falling across the Northeast, even as overall totals remain high.

ABC News reported that New York City reported a 17% drop and New Jersey reported a 17.6% drop in new cases over the last week.

Throughout the country, cases are still as high as 80,000 a day.

On Friday, Governor Kathy Hochul said that the may be “turning a corner,” with cases statewide falling from 90,000 to 49,000 in a week.

“That is a very positive trend and I believe we’ll be able to keep that going,” the governor said.

According to city data, Brooklyn’s 7-day average reached a peak on January 3, when 12,424 cases were reported. The most recent data from January 14 reported 5,242 cases.

Despite the optimistic outlook on the decline of coronavirus cases, the recent surge has delivered yet another series of blows to struggling New York City businesses, the City reported.

A survey from the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce revealed 75% businesses saw their December sales fall, 25% had to close for a few days, and roughly 60% had employees take sick leave.

Prominent Wall Street firms including Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley canceled plans for employees to return to the office.

Mayor Eric Adams have been aggressive in calling workers to return to the city, saying “you can’t run New York City from home.”

“We must have everyone participate in our financial ecosystem to allow the low-skill, unskilled and people who are hourly employees to actually be part of our ecosystem,” he said at a press conference last week. “They can’t remotely do their job.”

New York City was one of the hardest hit major cities during the pandemic, losing 90,000 or 20% of its workforce. Since, then it has recovered sluggishly, with its current unemployment rate hovering at 9%, double the national average.

“It’s hard to get off the ground,” economist James Parrott told the City. “Get on one knee, ready to stand up and get knocked down again.”

The city’s Independent Budget Office revised its estimates on how long it will take for the economy to recover. In early January, it released estimates that the city will add only 175,000 jobs in 2022 and 100,000 in 2023, meaning it would take until 2025 for the city to economically recover from the pandemic. In May, the IBO had estimated the city would recover by 2024.