Tech:NYC Digest: July 8

Tech:NYC Digest: July 8

July 08, 2021 • Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

Thursday, July 8, 2021

In today’s digest, the Delta variant signals it may be too early to wind down NYC’s test and trace programs, the lessons already learned after one month back in the office, and we download this week’s election results with Sally Goldenberg for the latest episode of Talk:NYC.

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With all eyes on the primaries this week, here are some of the (non-election) updates you may have missed. First, the latest on the COVID-19 front:

  • The city has been scaling back its efforts to monitor the spread of the coronavirus, but some are worried the de Blasio administration may be pulling back too soon. (New York Times) 

    • For the last few days, the daily average test positivity rate in New York City has begun to tick up slightly to near 1 percent, with pockets of positivity still a concern. Four ZIP codes in Staten Island accounted for more than 100 cases in the last week, for example.

    • There are also large swaths of the city with under 40 percent full vaccination rates, and only 35 percent of adult Black residents are fully vaccinated.

  • The concern is shared by the CDC and other federal experts, who are warning the more transmissible Delta variant has taken over as the dominant strain in the US, accounting for more than half of all COVID-19 cases in the country between June 20 and July 3.  (Politico)

    • In New York, the latest data shows it now makes up more than 44 percent of cases in the city, up from 22.7 percent the week prior.

  • Several studies have shown the variant poses little risk to fully vaccinated people, but a new report out today indicates the Delta variant is “barely sensitive” to a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine, offering very little protection against the virus. (The Hill) Protection rose to 95 percent, however, when a second dose was added. 

    • The takeaway: get both doses!

In other news:

  • Gov. Cuomo signed a bill that allows restaurants and bars statewide to use sidewalks, parking spots, and other municipal spaces for outdoor food and beverage service for another year, extending a lifeline to the hospitality industry’s recovery efforts. (Eater NY)

  • Mayor de Blasio announced details for how the city would spend $630 million provided by federal stimulus funds to address academic and learning loss experienced by public school students throughout the pandemic. (New York Daily News)

    • The plan invests another $122 million to purchase 175,000 Chromebooks and iPads to meet the goal of equipping every student with a device. It also expands the city’s Computer Science for All program to reach 400,000 students, and will require each eight-grader to complete a technology “capstone” project to demonstrate the skills needed to use their devices.

  • Theater has returned: Bruce Springsteen has reopened Broadway, and the Delacorte Theater in Central Park is reopening with a Harlem-set version of Shakespeare’s comedy “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” (New York Times) It’s even come back to the streets, via audio and walking tours, if you listen carefully. (New York Times)

  • Advocates, as well as some of the candidates, are calling for a reform to the city’s Board of Elections after an early counting discrepancy in the primary allowed for test ballots to be mixed in with the official ballots, and critics want political appointees to be replaced by nonpartisan professionals. (ABC New York)

In other reading:

  • Are Masks a New Signifier of Social Class? (New York Times)

  • Neighbors Rallied to Save Their Restaurants. Can They Keep the Party Going? (Grub Street)

  • What the ‘return to normal’ means for toddlers who no longer remember ‘normal’ (Washington Post)

  • People Are Making Out. Everywhere. (New York Times)

For the latest episode of Talk:NYC, we checked in with Politico New York City Hall Bureau Chief Sally Goldenberg a day after the new primary results were released in the race for mayor. Julie and Sally discussed the rankings, how Zoom and Twitter shaped the campaign trail, and what more we can expect in the lead-up to the general election in November.Get the episode here or wherever you listen to podcasts.

By this point, most companies in NYC have polled their employees and created their return-to-office playbooks, but with reopening dates set for later this summer or just after Labor Day, it hasn’t yet come time to test them in practice.

That’s where Quartz can help. The company reopened its New York office on June 1, and 68 percent of employees who live in New York or the surrounding suburbs have come in at least once since then.

Now a month in, CEO Zachary M. Seward shared some of his takeaways for other firms to pull from their experience so far. Among them:

  • Wednesdays and Thursdays are the most popular days to come into the office.

  • Teamwork is the incentive: workers are more enthusiastic about coming into the office when they know their friends and colleagues will be there too.

  • Hybrid mostly means remote: with most people still working from home most of the time, in-office workers should defer to remote employees, not the other way around (i.e.: Zooming into meetings even if you’re physically in the office).

  • Post-pandemic business fashion will be “business comfort”: especially when it’s this hot outside, that extends to shorts getting the greenlight as office garb.

  • Keep the office amenities simple: workers really just want to be sure plenty of coffee, seltzer, and packaged snacks are stocked up, not the fancier, more expensive perks.

  • A generational divide doesn’t exist: there was no generational pattern in who comes into the office; those preferences divide much more along factors like family/child circumstances and commute times.

These are helpful insights, but of course, it’s early to draw broad conclusions. Seward said: “We’re still in a liminal phase of the pandemic, it’s summertime in New York, and people are just beginning to figure out their personal preferences about normal life, let alone normal work.”

  • Acrylic, a Brooklyn-based VC firm focused on crypto, raised $55 million for its debut fund. The fund is led by Ash Egan (ex-Accomplice). (TechCrunch)

  • Coast, a New York-based financial platform for transportation, raised $6 million in seed funding. Better Tomorrow Ventures led, and was joined by Avid Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, BoxGroup, Colle, Foundation Capital, Greycroft and SciFi VC. (TechCrunch)

  • Ephemeral, a Brooklyn-based maker of tattoos that fade within 9-15 months, raised $20 million in Series A funding. Investors included Anthos Capital, Primary Venture Partners, Canaan Partners, Techstars Ventures, Gaingels, Lauren Maillian, and The Syndicate Angels. (Bloomberg)

  • Thrive Global, a New York-based behavior change and wellness technology company founded by Arianna Huffington, raised $80 million in Series C funding. Kleiner Perkins and Owl Ventures led the round. (BusinessWire)

  • July 12 – 15: Virtual: Tech for Social Impact Summit, with Stitch Fix chief people and culture officer Jevan Soo Lenox, Hello Alice CEO Carolyn Rodz, and others. Hosted by PowerToFly. Register here.

  • July 13: Virtual: Redefining Industries with the Power of 5G, with Newlab 5G Studio Cohort 2 companies Easy Aerial, EVPassport, and others. Hosted by Newlab. Register here.

  • July 22: Virtual: How AI Technology Affects Hiring, with RippleMatch chief of staff Troy LeClaire, Fetcher CEO Andres Banks, and Ordergroove SVP of People Karen Weeks. Hosted by NYCETC and Hot Bread Kitchen. Register here.

If you have outdoor dining plans or errands to run, just a friendly meteorological flag that Tropical Storm Elsa is heading up the East Coast, and it looks like it’s bad enough for NYC to declare a “severe thunderstorm watch” — there’s a possibility of wind gusts, hail, and tornadoes through tomorrow. Stay safe out there!

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