COVID-19 pandemic in New York

Origins

Genetic analysis confirmed that most cases of the virus had mutations indicating a European origin, meaning travelers flying to New York City from Europe brought the virus. Americans visiting Italy in late February and returning to New York on March 1 were not asked by customs if they had spent time in Italy, even though the State Department had urged Americans not to travel to Italy on February 29 (the same day Italy reported 1,100 COVID cases). According to statistical models, New York City already had 600 COVID-19 cases in mid-February, and as many as 10,000 cases by March 1.

Timeline

March 1, 2020, saw the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in New York State, a 39-year-old female health care worker who lived in Manhattan, who had returned from Iran on February 25 with no symptoms at the time. She went into home isolation with her husband.

On March 3, a second case was confirmed, a lawyer in his 50s who lived in New Rochelle, Westchester County, immediately north of New York City, and worked in Midtown Manhattan at a law firm within One Grand Central Place. He had traveled to Miami in February, but had not visited areas known to have widespread transmission of the coronavirus. Two of his four children had recently returned from Israel. After first feeling ill on February 22, he was admitted to a hospital in Westchester on February 27, diagnosed with pneumonia, and released from isolation after testing negative for the flu. Instances of panic buying in New York were reported after his case was confirmed.

On March 4, the number of cases in New York State increased to 11 as nine people linked to the lawyer tested positive, including his wife, a son, a daughter, a neighbor, and a friend and his family.

On March 5, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio said that coronavirus fears should not keep New Yorkers off the subway, riding from Fulton Street to High Street in a public press attempt to demonstrate the subway's safety.

On March 6, eleven new cases were reported, bringing the state caseload to 33. All the new cases were tied to the first community transmission case, the lawyer. At the end of the day, an additional 11 new cases were reported by the governor, bringing the total caseload to 44, with 8 of the new cases in Westchester County, and 3 in Nassau County on Long Island. Also on March 6, an article appeared in the New York Post stating that while Mayor de Blasio assigned responsibility for the lack of N95 masks and other personal protective equipment to the federal government, the city never ordered the supplies until that date.

On March 7, Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency in New York after 89 cases had been confirmed in the state, 70 of them in Westchester County, 12 in New York City and 7 elsewhere.

Impact on health care

Shortage of protective gear and medical equipment

After trying to purchase 200,000 N95 masks on February 7, 2020, the Office of Emergency Management learned that vendors were out of stock. Emergency provisions of masks and hand sanitizers did not arrive until early March. One medical supply vendor with standing city contracts said that the initial requests for protective gear from the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) were bogged down by inefficient bureaucratic delays. One vendor said, "We'd send them a list of products we can deliver within 24, 48 hours," but on average it took 72 hours for the agency to place an order. He added "the city just moves so slow" when there was very high demand coming from hospitals and the private sector. According to the contractor, eight out of 10 supply orders could not be filled because DCAS did not pay on time, which a spokeswoman for New York City denied. The office of the comptroller approved 12 contracts with a total value of $150 million before the mayor's office took over the process on March 16. Mayor de Blasio said that the city might run out of supplies by April if the federal government did not send 3 million N95 masks, 50 million surgical masks, 15,000 ventilators, and 45 million surgical gowns, gloves, and face shields.

One EMS worker expressed frustration at being asked to wear the less-effective surgical masks. The police union filed a complaint on March 13 due to NYPD officers not being given masks and other protective gear. A spokeswoman called the Police Benevolent Association's complaint "empty rhetoric".

New York gave a $69 million contract to a Silicon Valley engineer to provide 1,000 ventilators. The ventilators were never delivered. As of May 5, New York was seeking a refund. The engineer's name had been supplied by federal officials, and they had received it from volunteers in the office of Jared Kushner, senior advisor to President Donald Trump. According to the New York Times, it appears the engineer had not been vetted by anyone.

Paramedic shortages

On March 28, 2020, The New York Times reported that the city's 911 emergency response system was "overwhelmed" due to the large number of coronavirus patients needing transport to the hospital. Dispatchers received more than 7,000 calls on March 26, a record since the September 11 attacks. Emergency workers had to decide which cases to prioritize, and some patients were being left at home without medical care. In addition, paramedics lacked sufficient protective gear.

Testing

The private corporations responsible for testing had a limited testing capacity, and reached a bottleneck which made it increasingly difficult to conduct more tests per day. Backlogs for test results continued to increase in multiple states such as California, where it can take weeks to receive test results.

The FDA approved New York state to authorize the state's 28 public and private labs to begin manual, semi-automated and automated testing for novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. The approval allowed the state to dramatically increase testing capacity to thousands of tests per day. The approval also extended to the Roche high-volume platform for testing. New York State's Wadsworth Lab developed a new, less intrusive test for COVID-19. The new test was done through a saliva sample and a self-administered short nasal swab in the presence of a healthcare professional. Additionally, health care professionals could self-administer the test without another health care professional present.

Vaccination

On January 8, 2021, Governor Cuomo published an initial list of New Yorkers eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Groups 1A and 1B included essential workers, seniors aged 75 and above or living in nursing homes, and certain people with disabilities. On February 14, 2021, the vaccination program was expanded to include other individuals with comorbidities for COVID-19.

Starting March 10, 2021, people aged 60 and above could get vaccinated in New York State.

Starting March 23, 2021, people aged 50 and above could get vaccinated in New York State.

Starting March 30, 2021, people aged 30 and above could get vaccinated in New York State.

Starting April 6, 2021, people aged 16 and above could get vaccinated in New York State.

Starting May 13, 2021, people aged 12 and above could get vaccinated in New York State.

As of September 27, 2021, healthcare workers in New York State were required to have had at least their first dose of the vaccine.

Mass vaccination sites were opened in the state in provide faster and more equitable results.

At the end of February 2021 the access to vaccination appointment slots remained complicated in NYS. The governor of NYS and the mayor of NYC decided to let separate groups (e.g., Walgreens, medical groups, state or city vaccination campuses) manage their own vaccination schedules. This creates opacity in identifying potential available slots and applying in time to these spots. Phone lines to organize appointments were often not reachable. But Huge Ma, a New York software developer, created an application that facilitates taking appointments for vaccines in NYS, turbovax.info, which connected to multiple sites offering vaccination appointments.

Impact on voting

The New York State Democratic presidential primary—along with special elections in the 27th congressional district; the 50th senate district; and the 12th, 31st, and 136th assembly districts—were originally scheduled for April 28. On March 13, 2020, Senator Skoufis proposed legislation to move these elections to June 23. The intent was to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. On March 28, the New York State Board of Elections and Governor Cuomo postponed the elections to June 23. Subsequently, the Democratic presidential primary was canceled altogether, and most of the special elections were postponed until the general election in November.

Democratic presidential primary

On April 27, 2020, the Board of Elections changed its decision, and cancelled the Democratic presidential primary outright, by removing several candidates who suspended their campaigns from the ballot. The decision was first criticized by supporters of presidential candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders, who hoped to secure additional convention delegates, which would allow greater influence in the Democratic Party's platform. Other critics of the decision cited reduced voter turn out for down-ballot races, which unfairly benefits incumbent candidates. New York State Democratic Party Chair, Jay Jacobs, stated "our motivation right now is to avoid what happened in Wisconsin, where we in this situation are holding a primary that asks poll workers, many of them senior citizens, to risk their health for no particular purpose." Despite this move 42 of 62 New York counties, roughly 68% of counties in the New York State, would remain open for voting due to Congressional and State elections. At the time New York was the only state to cancel its presidential primary.

The decision was overturned on May 5 by Federal District Court Judge Analisa Torres in New York's Southern District, when presidential candidate Andrew Yang filed suit against the Board of Elections, asserting that the decision violated the 1st and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution. Judge Torres stated "...the Democratic Commissioners' April 27 Resolution removing Yang, Sanders, and eight other Democratic presidential candidates from the ballot deprived them of associational rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution."

An appeal was filed by the Board of Elections with the US Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. On May 19, it was ruled that the presidential primary could proceed as planned. The Board of Elections Co-chair, Douglas Kellner, said the Board would not pursue further appeals.

Absentee voting

On March 22, 2020, Attorney General Leticia James called for automatic absentee voting in the New York Democratic presidential primary. Cuomo later announced that he would investigate if his recently expanded executive powers would allow him to expand absentee ballot access. On April 9, by executive order of the Governor, all New York State residents were granted the right to apply for an absentee ballot using the state's online absentee ballot application in order to facilitate safe voting in the primary elections. As stated in the order, all voters would be required to "check the box for 'Temporary illness or physical disability' with no requirement for in-person signature or appearance to be able to access an absentee ballot." In an effort to ease barriers to access, Cuomo announced on April 24 that postage paid absentee ballot applications would be mailed to all registered voters in the State. Voters can still apply for a ballot online, or opt to vote in person.

State and local elections

Filings for independent nominations to petitions were postponed beginning March 31, 2020. On April 25 special elections were cancelled for the 50th senate district, and the 12th, 31st and 136th assembly districts, as well as the Queens Borough President and New York City Council District 37. These vacancies were filled in the November General Election. The 27th Congressional district special election was not cancelled.

Effect on communities

Lack of enforcement of self-quarantine policies

Self-quarantines for persons who tested positive or were symptomatic were not enforced due to a lack of resources. Several New York City area nurses expressed concerns that patients were not complying with self-quarantine guidelines, due to financial necessity or fear of losing their jobs. A New York State Nurses Association board member expressed concern that low-income patients who share rooms with other individuals may not be able to effectively self-isolate at their residences.

Implementation in Hasidic communities

Implementing social distancing was difficult in some communities dominated by Hasidic Jews. On March 19, 2020, the Orange County village of Kiryas Joel, home to 25,000 Satmar Hasidim, closed all 100 of its synagogues, as well as schools and mikvot, despite the centrality of religious observance in the community. It was estimated that 25–28 percent of its residents had tested positive, including the community's 73-year-old spiritual leader, Grand Rebbe Aaron Teitelbaum. On March 27, the county reported that Kiryas Joel, within the town of Palm Tree, had 234 confirmed cases, the most of any municipality in the county.

Some reports suggested that the Hasidic community was generally slow to implement measures designed to slow the spread of the virus. This reportedly led to one antisemitic incident. On March 23, 2020, a car dealership near Kiryas Joel refused to service a resident's car, telling him he had the virus.

An Orthodox Jewish physician, Vladimir Zelenko, who saw patients at his offices in both Kiryas Joel and Monsey, another predominantly Hasidic community in nearby Rockland County, claimed that the real infection rate in Kiryas Joel was much higher. This was disputed by local authorities. Zelenko, who had to self-isolate since he was missing a lung, said in daily YouTube videos that his office treated 500 patients (mostly in Kiryas Joel) for COVID-19, using the combination of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and zinc sulfate, which in some trials yielded positive results in reducing symptoms. Zelenko claimed that 90 percent of the Hasidic community would become infected; the county's health commissioner and the village's emergency services department disputed that, pointing out that it was based on nine positive results out of 14 samples.

By April 9, Palm Tree had reported 428 cases, maintaining its lead among Orange County's municipalities, a lead it lost a week later. Leaders of the surrounding towns and villages repeated an earlier call by county executive Steve Neuhaus for the town to be declared a containment zone as the area of New Rochelle where a cluster had been identified a month earlier had been, a request denied at that time by Cuomo since the stay-at-home order for the entire state was more restrictive. The Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council had responded to such pressure by calling on local leadership to "stop scapegoating Jews of KJ when the problem is clearly widespread, and worse, everywhere in [the] county."

Police and crime

At the beginning of March 2020, prior to the confirmation of the first case of COVID-19, and the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in New York City, a 20 percent spike in crime for the first two months of 2020 was reported. After movement in the city became restricted, New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea stated that the pandemic had curtailed crime. At the end of March, Shea said that crime had decreased sharply during the epidemic (other than car theft, which increased markedly), though there was concern that domestic violence was not being reported. As of April 8, 2,103 uniformed members and 373 civilian members had tested positive for the virus while 13 had died.

In early April, the state's Division of Criminal Justice Services reported that crime had dropped considerably since late February, both in the city and state compared to the same period the year before. In the city, combined felony and misdemeanor arrests were down 43 percent, with the rest of the state recording a 69 percent drop. Cuomo praised the drop as a result of social distancing, since it helped keep hospitals and first responders free to deal with the pandemic.

Tensions over city residents relocating to rural areas

Some residents of New York City and its inner suburbs who own, or can afford to rent, property in rural areas upstate or on eastern Long Island aroused local resentment for doing so during the pandemic. Steve McLaughlin, executive of Rensselaer County, east of Albany, asked Cuomo to issue an order banning all non-essential travel upstate from the city, after city residents booked all available local lodging. Seven of 51 cases the county had as of April 2 were city residents, and the county feared it did not have sufficient healthcare infrastructure to handle a large outbreak; McLaughlin issued an order requiring any recent arrivals from the city to quarantine themselves for 14 days, during which law enforcement would check on them regularly.

Similarly, Greene County, in the Catskills just south of Albany, posted on its website a letter asking people to refrain from traveling there, especially from New York City or Westchester. "There is no hospital in Greene County," wrote the chairman of the county legislature. "This limits our ability to serve a large number of people requiring higher levels of care for COVID-19 patients and other illnesses." The legislatures of neighboring Delaware and Sullivan counties made similar requests.

In the Hamptons, on the eastern end of Long Island's South Fork, a longtime summer destination for city residents, rental rates quadrupled as the population nearly doubled. While many year-round residents were aware that the towns' economy depended on seasonal residents, they believed their resources were stretched to the limit.

New York renters and homeowners

Cuomo initially announced a state moratorium for both residential and commercial evictions on March 20, 2020. This moratorium was an attempt to prevent evictions during the height of the COVID-19 public health emergency. He then signed the Tenant Safe Harbor Act, which had passed the New York State Senate and New York State Assembly on May 27, into law on June 30. The Tenant Safe Harbor Act gave an additional layer of protection to tenants experiencing financial hardship during the public health emergency, as it prevented courts from ever evicting on the basis of non-payment that accrued or came due during the COVID-19 period. Previously, a tenant who was unable to pay rent could be evicted on the basis of non-payment as soon as the moratorium ended. On September 28, Cuomo announced the Tenant Safe Harbor Act would be extended and expanded through January 1, 2021.

In addition to the Tenant Safe Harbor Act, Cuomo signed the COVID-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2020 into effect on December 28. This piece of legislation further safeguards New York renters and homeowners and ensures they can remain in their homes. The Act suspends residential eviction and residential foreclosure proceedings until May 1, 2021, and allows renters and homeowners to submit a declaration of hardship. The Act also prevents credit discrimination, and negative credit reporting due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Impact on sports

Most of the state's sports teams were affected. Major League Baseball cancelled the remainder of spring training on March 12, 2020, and on March 16 it announced that the season would be postponed indefinitely, after the recommendation from the CDC to restrict events of more than 50 people for the next eight weeks, affecting the New York Yankees and New York Mets. The National Basketball Association suspended the season for 30 days starting March 12, affecting the New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets. The National Hockey League season was suspended indefinitely on March 12, affecting the New York Rangers, New York Islanders, and Buffalo Sabres. Major League Soccer postponed the season for 30 days starting March 12, affecting the New York Red Bulls and New York City FC. On March 12, the National Lacrosse League postponed the remainder of their season until further notice, affecting the seasons of the Buffalo Bandits, Rochester Knighthawks, and New York Riptide. The XFL suspended its season on March 12, affecting the inaugural season of the New York Guardians.

In college sports, the National Collegiate Athletic Association cancelled all winter and spring tournaments, most notably the Division I men's and women's basketball tournaments, affecting colleges and universities statewide. On March 16, the National Junior College Athletic Association also canceled the remainder of the winter seasons as well as the spring seasons.

The state's high school basketball playoffs had begun in early March with no spectators allowed. On March 12, the New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA) suspended remaining winter sports championship contests in all sports that still had not decided them: boys' and girls' basketball, ice hockey, and bowling.

On March 17, four members of the Brooklyn Nets, including Kevin Durant, were confirmed positive for COVID-19.

A little over a month later, NYSPSHSAA announced that Sections 8 and 11, which cover all of Long Island's high schools, had voted to cancel all spring high school and middle school sports seasons. "It was not an easy [decision] to make," said Section 11 executive director Tom Combs, "however, in what the world is experiencing at this time, it is the most reasonable and prudent decision to make." The other nine sections of the state, in areas which in some cases were not experiencing the pandemic so severely, had not made decisions yet and were still planning for the possibility of a short spring season at the end of May and in early June. Championships for any spring sports, were they to be held, would likely have to be moved to other locations since they had been scheduled to be played on Long Island; on April 27, they were canceled.

Impact on outdoor recreation

The ban on large gatherings meant that the annual "First Cast" ceremony at the Junction Pool, a popular fly fishing spot, in the Sullivan County hamlet of Roscoe, marking the April 1 opening of trout season, could not be held. The season still opened and the state's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) encouraged anglers to take to the state's streams as long as they continued to practice social distancing. Many stores in Roscoe that catered to them were nevertheless closed and limited to filling orders online. Anglers in Central New York reported that day that they were able to easily maintain social distancing while in the waters of Ninemile Creek, a practice necessary to the sport in any event since it prevented them from getting their lines tangled with each other. They appreciated the opportunity to get outside on a day with good weather for fishing and forget the pandemic, and some told the Syracuse Post-Standard they had good catches as well.

DEC announced on April 7 that the state's spring wild turkey hunting season in May, and the youth turkey weekend at the end of April, were still going on. It advised hunters, in addition to the usual hunting safety practices, to continue social distancing while hunting and take other measures, such as buying supplies online and hunting close to home. Hunters were further advised to share blinds with other hunters only if they lived in the same residence, and to hunt alone where possible.

Park closures and use restrictions

On April 7, 2020, Rockland and Sullivan counties closed their parks for two weeks. Residents had been making heavy use of them during the lockdown, making it difficult to enforce social distancing. A week later the Palisades Interstate Park Commission (PIPC) closed Nyack Beach and Rockland Lake state parks in Rockland County; local and county government officials had urged the move since the parks had grown crowded with visitors on recent warm days after the county and its towns closed their own parks. "While this is a tough call it is the right thing to do short term," said county executive Ed Day, who said the decision would be reviewed in two weeks.

On April 9, Cuomo removed golf courses, boat launches and marinas from the list of essential businesses allowed to remain open, forcing all courses in the state of New York to close until at least April 29. The move was a result of New Jersey and Pennsylvania having ordered courses to close, resulting in crowding at New York's courses near borders with those states. On April 18, Empire State Development modified that order to allow courses to open as long as no employees such as caddies were on the course, meaning golfers must carry their own bags and cannot use carts; three weeks later that order was again modified to allow the use of carts as a reasonable accommodation for disabled golfers, per the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The Rockland County park closures were supplemented April 24 by the PIPC's closure of all roads through Bear Mountain and Harriman state parks, where the Anthony Wayne Recreation Area was serving as a testing site, save Seven Lakes Drive, and exits that led to those roads from Palisades Interstate Parkway, in not only Rockland but neighboring Orange County. Trail shelters were also closed, although backpackers were still allowed to set up camp within 300 ft (91 m) of the shelters. Permitholders were still allowed to boat on the parks' lakes; sales of new permits were suspended through May 7.

In Ulster County, parking lots at Minnewaska State Park Preserve in the Shawangunks were limited to 50 percent of capacity to prevent overcrowding. All recreational activities within the park other than foot travel and motorless bicycling were prohibited, including climbing and bouldering. Restrooms within the park were closed as well.

In Dutchess, Putnam and Westchester counties, many popular trails and trailheads alongside the Hudson River in Hudson Highlands State Park were closed since hikers arriving by car or Metro-North's Hudson Line trains must walk on the side of narrow roads and thus cannot keep six feet apart. Among them were all trails on Breakneck Ridge and Bull Hill north of Cold Spring.

Statistics

Initially, under Governor Cuomo, New York counted only those COVID-19 deaths that occurred in hospitals, nursing homes, and adult care facilities. This excluded people who died at home or in other locations. Following Cuomo's resignation, beginning on August 24, 2021, New York began using the death certificate data provided to the CDC, which includes deaths in any location within the state. This increased New York's death toll by nearly 12,000; the newly totaled number of deaths up to that point was 55,395.

Demographics

Following a USA Today article in early April suggesting the states could release demographic breakdowns of victims, New York published information on the age of those who had died of COVID-19. Nearly two-thirds of the dead were over 60 years old. It also included a breakdown by county, information that in some cases differed with that released by the individual county health departments. Later data showed that 61 percent of the dead were men, that 86 percent had underlying health conditions such as hypertension and diabetes that are known to increase the possibility that COVID-19 will be fatal, and that African American and Latino patients in the state outside of New York City accounted for a greater share of the deaths from the disease than their share of the overall population (data from New York City was not available at the time). Demographics of COVID-19 fatalities continue to be updated on the state's COVID-19 tracker website Archived May 10, 2020, at the Wayback Machine.

Graphs

Note: As the New York State Department of Health is not reporting data in compliance with CDC recommendations, the below charts use only data validated by Johns Hopkins University.

Note: Per NYDOH, the spike for June 30 in the above chart is due to a comprehensive accounting of current and retrospective data, provided by nursing homes and adult care facilities. These data capture COVID-19 confirmed and COVID-19 presumed deaths within these facilities. These data do not reflect COVID-19 confirmed or COVID-19 presumed positive deaths that occurred outside of the facility. This number includes retrospective data from reporting that dates back to March 1, 2020.