It's Tuesday. We'll look at two pandemic-related stories: First, we'll catch up with the first person in the United States to receive a coronavirus vaccine — one year ago today. Then we'll look at why New York City hasn't regained jobs the way the rest of the country has. |
 | | Pool photo by Mark Lennihan |
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I remember watching Sandra Lindsay's moment on national television, with the camera shutters clicking in the background, the doctor aiming the needle and the room breaking into applause, including Ms. Lindsay. I remember thinking something like: It's no longer that hope is on the way — hope is here. |
That was one year ago today. Lindsay, the director of critical-care nursing at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, was the first person in the United States to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. Since then, she has received an award from President Biden at the White House. The scrubs and badge she wore when she was vaccinated have been sent to the Smithsonian Institution. She was the grand marshal of the Hometown Heroes parade, which honored frontline workers. |
She has continued to urge vaccinations for people who were hesitant, as she herself had been. Getting the vaccine "was like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders," she said. "And I felt like it was my civic duty as well as my professional responsibility to do my part. I look back now with a lot of pride." |
Lindsay said the positive messages from adults and children thanking her outweighed the criticism from social media users who questioned why a Black woman had received the first shot. "People were saying, 'Of course they had to choose a Black woman to be the guinea pig' and they were wondering if I wasn't aware of the Tuskegee study," she told my colleague Precious Fondren, referring to a government study that began in the 1930s and followed about 400 Black men who had syphilis without treating them. "My brother just kindly informed people that I was well educated and I was in a doctoral program." |
Lindsay, who completed work toward a Doctor of Health Sciences degree three months later, said her one act of receiving the vaccine would not undo the years of racist and unethical medical practices that people of color had experienced. But she said she hoped her vaccination had served as a signal that it was all right to trust science and medicine now. |
More than 200 million Americans are fully vaccinated, roughly 60 percent of the population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But she said the numbers should be higher. |
"I was hoping for a faster sprint across the finish line," she said. "We have more work to do here in the U.S., although we've made tremendous progress — 60 percent is progress." |
She also said she understood the push to return to normal. "It's been a long road and some people have been hit so hard," she said, "and I know it's hard to exercise any more patience. We just want this to be done with and gone away." |
But cases in New York City have risen in recent weeks, with the Delta variant driving the uptick. My colleague Joseph Goldstein, who covers health care for the Metro desk, told me that over the last two weeks, there have typically been more than 2,000 newly detected cases each day in New York City. There were more than 3,300 on Dec. 8, the most on a single day since April. |
But the current case count, though higher compared with what it has been in recent months, is still lower than it was a year ago, during New York's long second wave. Hospitalizations remain low, though they have been climbing slowly. In New York City, 866 patients were hospitalized with Covid-19 on Dec. 12, the most recent day for which figures are available. At the height of the second wave last winter, as many as 3,884 were hospitalized. |
Still, it remains to be seen how the Omicron variant will alter the picture, assuming it becomes the dominant strain, as many epidemiologists expect. |
It's another sunny day with temps in the low 50s. At night, it's partly cloudy and temps will drop to the high 30s. |
In effect until Dec. 24 (Christmas Eve). |
Why isn't New York City regaining jobs like the rest of the country? |
 | | Lanna Apisukh for The New York Times |
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In 2021, nearly six million jobs have been added in the United States. The unemployment rate has dropped to 4.2 percent, close to where it stood before the pandemic. |
But in New York City, the economy appears to be stuck. The city has regained fewer than 6 of every 10 jobs lost since the pandemic began. The nation as a whole has regained more than 90 percent of lost jobs, according to James Parrott, an economist with the Center for New York City Affairs. |
An employment rebound, once widely anticipated, has yet to materialize. My colleagues Matthew Haag and Patrick McGeehan write that employment here has slowed considerably this year. Employers have added only 187,000 jobs since March. Nearly every industry, from construction to finance to social services, now has fewer workers than before the pandemic hit New York in March 2020. |
Nearly two years later, the city has added back a little more than half the jobs it lost, according to the state Labor Department — far less than the rest of the country. The city's unemployment rate now stands at 9.4 percent, more than double the national average. The New York figure has declined in recent months after peaking at 20 percent in June 2020, mainly because thousands of people have dropped out of the labor force. |
The protracted pandemic has shut out tourists and scared off suburbanites who filled office towers every weekday — a "double whammy," said Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit watchdog group. Just 8 percent of office workers were back at work five days a week in early November, according to a survey by the Partnership for New York City, a business group. |
"Commuters and tourists consume a lot of the same stuff," Rein said. "They consume, in a certain sense, the vibrancy of New York City." |
Their absence has contributed to the loss of more than 100,000 jobs in the city's restaurants, bars and hotels, plus nearly 60,000 additional jobs in retailing, performing arts, entertainment and recreation. The reopening of Broadway theaters provided a boost in the fall, but the Omicron variant could nip the budding recovery as the next mayor, Eric Adams, takes office in January. Adams has promised to focus the resources of city government on reinvigorating the economy, with a citywide jobs training and placement program. |
The pandemic was particularly painful for those in lower-paying service jobs. By contrast, Wall Street "is having a banner year" and did well last year, said Ana Champeny, deputy research director at the Citizens Budget Commission. One result: The city has continued to collect income taxes from highly paid professionals who are working remotely. |
The employment picture in New York reflects how the pandemic has shifted priorities, with many people making work-life balance a new priority. Louisa Tatum, a career coach at the New York Public Library in the Bronx, said workers had become more selective about what jobs they were willing to accept. |
"There is a desire to work remotely and for opportunities that don't put them at risk of anything," she said. |
In tribute to a New York City institution, this week's Metropolitan Diaries offer readers' tales of encounters with Stephen Sondheim. |
A few years ago, I went to see a friend in a play at the Signature Theater in Manhattan. The elevator was empty when I got in. Seconds later, Stephen Sondheim got in too and stood almost shoulder to shoulder with me. |
I froze. I couldn't speak. |
After exiting the elevator, we both approached the young woman at the box office. He was in front of me. |
"Reservation, Sondheim," I heard him say. |
The woman gave him his ticket, and he walked off. |
"Aren't we all?" she replied. |
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. |
Melissa Guerrero and Olivia Parker contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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