Tech:NYC Digest: September 15

Tech:NYC Digest: September 15

September 15, 2021 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

In today’s digest, universal mask mandates come to child care settings, daily subway ridership hits new records, and employers are grappling with who pays for required COVID testing. 

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By the numbers:

  • New positive cases statewide: 4,852 (+754)

    • New positive cases, NYC: 1,671 (+126)

  • Statewide Fatalities: 31 (+3)

  • NYC Positivity Rate: 2.1 percent (-0.1 percent)

  • Statewide Vaccine Progress:

    • Percentage of adults (18+) with at least one dose: 81.8 percent

    • Percentage of total population with at least one dose: 69.3 percent

Today’s latest: 

  • Gov. Kathy Hochul today announced a series of universal mask mandates to further protect New Yorkers from the Delta variant. (ABC 7 New York)

    • Face coverings are now required for children ages two and up, staff, and visitors at licensed child care centers, home-based and family child care programs, and after-school child care programs. The new rules provide consistency between children in child care programs and schoolchildren, many of which share the same buildings.

    • They apply to everyone 2+, regardless of vaccination status. Get more details here.

  • A bipartisan commission was tasked with drawing new congressional district lines, and with the latest Census data, New York will soon lose one House seat. (New York Times)

    • The commission was created so the new lines weren’t gerrymandered to favor a particular party, but today, Democratic and Republican commissioners failed to reach an agreement on an initial map proposal. Two different sets of proposals will proceed. (New York Times)

  • Almost 3 million people rode the subway on both Monday and Tuesday of this week, setting new ridership levels since the start of the pandemic. (amNewYork) Those numbers are about 50 percent of the 5.5 million pre-pandemic riders.

  • The dedicated Brooklyn Bridge bike lane has now opened to the public, a smooth two-way lane on the Manhattan-bound side of the roadbed. (Gothamist) 

In other reading:

  • The debate over booster shots is getting hotter (New York Magazine)

  • Emily Oster, the Brown economist, is launching a new data hub on schools and the pandemic (New York Times)

  • New York Times photographers document America’s grand reopening, postponed (New York Times)

In previous editions of the digest this week, we’ve looked at some of the questions businesses still have about the COVID-19 federal mandates on everything from reporting and enforcement rules to medical and religious exemptions.

Add to that list: COVID-19 testing.

  • The mandate requires that any employee at a business with more than 100 employees must submit to weekly testing.

Pres. Biden met with business leaders from Microsoft and other large companies to discuss implementation of the mandate. (Washington Post)

An obvious question on their minds: who pays for it? (New York Times)

  • Federal law requires insurers to fully cover the costs of tests when ordered by a healthcare provider, but routine workplace tests are exempt from that provision.

There is sure to be more guidance when OSHA releases further details on the mandates, but so far, companies have taken a range of approaches:

  • Some employers — especially those that are more insistent on workers being in the office full-time — are covering the costs completely.

  • Others are requiring unvaccinated employees to cover the full cost, but allowing for a choice of the company’s preferred service or an outside provider.

  • And even others are making on-site testing available, where the employer subsidizes service providers who come to their HQ and the employee is charged a lower rate (something akin to a co-pay).

  • If not employer-provided, many workers will opt to get tested at their regular doctor’s office or pharmacy (which will typically bill their insurance for the service).

One option that may help: Pres. Biden announced the production of more rapid at-home test kits, which major retailers like Amazon and Walmart will sell at cost. But we’ll need a lot more of them.

  • Right now, the plan calls for the production of 280 million rapid tests — less than one per American over the course of a year.

It’ll be a tricky balance, whatever companies decide for their workforces, dynamics that all come down to cost. (In other countries, rapid tests are cheap or free.)

In other reading:

  • Society on Human Resource Management: What to expect from OSHA on COVID-19 vaccine and testing rules (SHRM)

  • A start on expanding rapid tests for workers may come too late (Axios)

  • How US employers can provide better health care (Harvard Business Review)

  • Aren, a New York City-based provider of civil infrastructure management SaaS, raised $2 million in seed funding led by Shadow Ventures.

  • BriteCore, a New York City-based tech platform for property and casualty insurers, raised $20 million in Series C funding. Warburg Pincus led the round and was joined by investors including Radian Capital.

  • Inspired Capital, a New York City-based VC firm co-founded by Alexa von Tobel and Penny Pritzker, raised $281 million for its second fund. (TechCrunch)

  • Pagaya, a New York City and Tel Aviv-based artificial intelligence lending fintech company, agreed to go public via a SPAC merger with EJF Acquisition Corp at a valuation of $9 billion. (Wall Street Journal)

  • September 17: Virtual: Gen Z VC Summit, with Lerer Hippeau partner Andrea Hippeau, Cowboy Ventures Principal Jillian Williams, Acrew Capital investor John Smothers, and others. Hosted by Lerer Hippeau. Register here.

  • September 20 – 23: Diversity Reboot Series: Early Career Connections and Mid-Career Pivots, with Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani, Path Forward executive director Tami Forman, and others. Hosted by PowerToFly. Register here.

  • September 22: Virtual: How to Revive NYC’s Economy, Spark Good Jobs, and Build a More Equitable City, with Glitch CEO Anil Dash, Per Scholas president and CEO Plinio Ayala, United Way of NYC president and CEO Sheena Wright, and more. Hosted by Center for an Urban Future. Register here.

  • September 30: Virtual: Decoding Product-Led Growth Success with GitLab product group manager Sarah Waldner, Figma product manager Katie Szeto, and Airtable product lead Kelly O’Shaughnessy. Hosted by Work-Bench. Register here.

  • October 5: Virtual: Greening Crypto, with DealBook editor Andew Ross Sorkin and guest experts. Register here.

Broadway is back! (New York Times) Several long-running, iconic shows returned to the stage for (re)opening night yesterday, and we’re not sure it’s possible fans could have been more excited — just listen to the ovations from the Hamilton and Wicked audiences.

Another few dozen plays and musicals — some returning, some brand new — are set to have their opening nights between now and the end of the year. Here’s a rundown of

— get your tickets early!

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