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COVID-19 Digest: September 23

COVID-19 Digest: September 23

September 23, 2020 • Estimated Reading Time: 13 minutes

COVID-19 Digest

Wednesday, September 23, 2020As NYC’s reopening and recovery efforts continue, the digest will focus on the resources that help you make decisions about your businesses and your lives as New Yorkers.Below and in our resource guide, you’ll find the latest information on government resources for businesses, city and state reopening measures, and return-to-office preparedness plans. If this can be useful to your colleagues and network, encourage them to sign up here.

The Latest in New York

The latest: Our lessons learned from 100 polls in this digest; J&J vaccine enters late-stage trials with largest participant pool; House passes short-term funding bill, preventing government shutdown; the Met cancels all programming through September 2021; London financial giants sending staff back home as the UK reels from new COVID cases.Confirmed Cases:

New York State: 451,892 (+665)
New York City: 241,087 (+280)
Statewide Fatalities: 25,437 (+5)
Daily NYC Infection Rate: 1.1 percent (+0.1 percent)

General Updates:

As the US surpasses 200,000 total coronavirus deaths, the average daily fatality rate is still alarmingly high at 770 deaths per day. (AP) With schools reopening and colder weather setting in, some models predict the death toll will double to 400,000 by the end of the year.
NYC officials are closely monitoring what they’re calling the “Ocean Parkway Cluster,” a group of neighborhoods in Brooklyn where there has been a disproportionate increase in cases over the last three weeks. (NY1) Borough Park, Midwood, and Bensonhurst are part of the cluster, and Williamsburg, Kew Gardens, and Far Rockaway are other neighborhoods seeing rapidly rising rates of infection.
Mayor de Blasio is reigniting his request that New York State let the city borrow as much as $5 billion to avoid layoffs this fiscal cycle and further budget cuts in future cycles. (New York Daily News) The request comes after a City Council hearing on the matter was postponed and 9,000 more city workers will be furloughed for five days, saving about $21 million. (New York Daily News)
Johnson & Johnson began the final stage of clinical trials for its coronavirus vaccine. (New York Times) The company’s trials are the largest, with 60,000 enrolled participants, and may have some advantages over other vaccines being developed, including that it may just require one shot instead of two.
The House approved a short-term bill to stave off a government shutdown, providing funding until Dec. 11. (New York Times) The bill still needs the support of the Senate and Pres. Trump to go into effect. With the possible shutdown and a Supreme Court confirmation distracting lawmakers, there’s even less hope COVID-19 stimulus talks will progress before the election. (New York Magazine)

One civic thing: The deadline to complete the 2020 Census is one week away! If you haven’t already, take 10 minutes to answer 10 questions that ensure New York gets the resources it needs for the next 10 years. Complete the form online here.

One good read: Fear persists about what lies ahead. But small transformations have unfolded that reveal the grit and gifts of the city’s people. (New York Times)

Survey

The latest results: When New York is able to fully reopen, how long do you think it will take for the city to return to pre-COVID economic activity levels?

2.3%: 1-3 months
18.8%: 6 months to a year
76.1%: More than a year
2.8%: It will never return to pre-COVID levels

Today’s poll: Now more than seven months into the pandemic, we’ve learned a lot from our community’s insights on how NYC is beating — and recovering from — the coronavirus. (More on that below.) As we mark the 100th flash poll in this digest, we have one simple question today: are you confident that New York is, in fact, not dead?

*|SURVEY: Yes, it will bounce back, as it always does|*
*|SURVEY: Yes, it will come back stronger than ever|*
*|SURVEY: Yes, if any place can come out on top, it’s NYC|*
*|SURVEY: Yes, all of the above|*

Find the poll results from all previous editions of this newsletter here.

What You Need to Know

A Few Things We've Learned:

Soon after we launched this digest, we began asking you, our readers, to respond to daily flash polls that helped us see how our community was responding to the challenges of life during a pandemic. Today marks our 100th poll, and here are some of the things we’ve learned:

Work from home is here to stay. With the pandemic lasting much longer than many expected, more of you are making long-term work changes. Most of you reported feeling able to build more flexibility into your work day early in the pandemic, and 78 percent of you said this month you’ll WFH more even post-pandemic, up from 71 percent in April.
You’re staying away from the subway. The number of you who said your first ride wouldn’t be until 2021 jumped from 21 percent to 34 percent between April and June. As of August, 75 percent of you said you still had not returned to public transit since the pandemic began.
But you’re using other modes more to get around. The number of you taking advantage of bikes, scooters, and other micromobility options as your primary mode of travel jumped from 7 percent to 19 percent between May and July. The majority of you continue to stay close to home, with 56 percent primarily traveling by foot.
Outdoor dining is a hit. At the beginning of May, almost half of you said you were most excited to begin frequenting restaurants again, at 45 percent, far more than gyms or salons. By the end of July, the same number of you reported having gone to an outdoor dining location more than once.
But the idea of indoor dining still makes you wary. At the beginning of September, 82 percent of you said you wouldn’t have a meal indoors at a restaurant yet, 42 percent of which said dining should remain outdoors only.
Expectations for a vaccine remain steady. 48 percent think a vaccine will be widely available in the first half of 2021, up 8 points from July. Just 3.5 percent now think one will be available before the end of the year.
New York’s economy has a long path ahead. The state’s cautious, phased reopening strategy made remarkable strides in flattening the curve and suppressing virus spread, but it has dealt a tough blow to economic activity. The number of you who think it will take more than a year to return to pre-pandemic economic levels increased from 62 percent to 76 percent between May and September.
Bonus takeaway: the tech crowd is not the sports crowd. Shocker, we know. In July, 47 percent of you said you didn’t plan to watch live sports when they returned to television, and earlier this month, you let us know you kept your word, with almost 60 percent of you responding with some form of “what is sports?”

As New York’s recovery strategy evolves, we’ll keep taking the pulse of our community and use those insights to provide the resources to help. If there are other questions we should ask or sentiments we should track, we’d love to hear your ideas!What to Know: Reopening:

These 30 moments in 2020 and 2021 are possible turning points for the pandemic and how it’s reshaping our lives (STAT News)
The Metropolitan Opera announced it would cancel its entire 2020-21 season, keeping the nation’s largest performing arts organization dark until next September. (New York Times)