Despite Coronavirus Vaccine, NYC Headed Toward Shutdown: Mayor

NEW YORK CITY — The coronavirus vaccine’s arrival in New York City likely won’t avert what seems increasingly inevitable — a full shutdown similar to the spring clampdown after the pandemic struck.

Mayor Bill de Blasio repeated that grim message on Tuesday after a jubilant update on the vaccine. The life-saving doses eventually will end the coronavirus fight, but until many, many more New Yorkers get the shot the city still has to contend with a steady rise in COVID-19 cases, he said.

The city’s daily case numbers all point toward a future shutdown, de Blasio said.

At last count, the city had 160 new COVID-19 patients in the hospital, 2.89 hospitalizations per 100,000 residents, 2,813 new cases per day and a citywide 5.51 percent positivity

“They're going in the wrong direction,” de Blasio said during his daily briefing. “We are just on the verge of a huge breakthrough of the vaccine, but we're also dealing with a second wave. We’ve got to beat it back, we got to protect lives and we’ve got to protect our hospitals.

“So, I think unfortunately — I don't say it with anything but sorrow, but I do think it's needed —we're going to need to do some kind of shutdown in the weeks ahead. Something that resembles the ‘PAUSE’ we were in in the spring.”

De Blasio said the final decision lies with the state, but his “nomination” would be start a shutdown after Christmas.

The stark prediction is only the latest in a days-long back-and-forth between de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in which both leaders — who are often at odds — warn of the growing chance of a shutdown in the city and elsewhere in the state.

Cuomo, in particular, sounded warnings over rising hospitalization numbers. He said if a region is three weeks from hitting 90 percent of hospital capacity, then it enters a "red zone" that closes all but essential businesses.

A shutdown, if it happens, could spare schools, de Blasio said. He noted schools have stayed safe in the pandemic.

There are “tremendous” health and social benefits for children that remain in school, said Jay Varma, the city’s senior health advisor.

The city’s health Commissioner Dave Chokshi agreed.

“Schools should be thought of as as instruments of promoting health in our communities and so that's why we have taken those painstaking steps to make them as safe as possible because they promote health,” Chokshi said.

De Blasio said a shutdown otherwise likely would only leave essential work and businesses open.