By: Jared Evan
Earlier in the year optimism ran high, NYC and the entire nation was poised for a grand comeback, Broadway was going to re-open, the stores would spring back to life with tourists filling the streets.
President Biden on a sunny April day, announced the “great progress” made in fighting the virus, and the general mood in the city and the nation was upbeat and hopeful, but by mid-July the media once more became filled with terrifying stories about filled hospitals, rising cases and the dreaded Delta variant.
The mood has rapidly shifted in the nation, and one must wonder if the public will react to the constant fear and threats of the virus being endlessly repeated by Dr Fauci and the Biden administration, by crawling back into their homes, terrified, by the minimal threat of the Delta variant.
The signals are confusing, the government’s message went from “masks off”, let’s get back to normal life, to a constant drumbeat of “delta variant is here, get the vaccine, or we are all doomed”. The vaccine was supposed to be the magic elixir to a normal life and millions of New Yorkers ran to get inoculated. Mayor de Blasio triumphantly declared “New York is back” and spend the next several months promoting the giant “Homecoming Concert”; which was prematurely cancelled, ending before the headlining acts took the stage due to Hurricane Henri. Lighting struck the great “Homecoming Concert”, is this symbolic for the re-opening of NY in general?
Merge this with Governor Cuomo resigning, President Biden’s approval rating tanking because of the disastrous pull out of Afghanistan, and our leaders only talking about 3 things: the vaccine, the unvaccinated and the Delta variant, and you have a confused and uncertain public, as the confidence of government leadership is collapsing.
NY Times points out: one big company after another has postponed plans to come back to Manhattan’s soaring towers. Trade shows have been canceled. Some small businesses have had orders evaporate.
Fear of the Delta is, as the NY Times describes, is a setback for a city that has lagged behind the rest of the country in its economic recovery, with a 10.5 percent unemployment rate that is nearly twice the national average. Now, rather than seeing the fuller rebound it was counting on, New York is facing fresh challenges.
NY Times reported: Regaining momentum could be painfully slow. James Parrott, an economist with the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School, expects the city to add 20,000 to 30,000 jobs a month in the fall, instead of 40,000 to 50,000, because of Delta.
While the NY Times pins all the blame on the Delta variant itself, one must ask themselves if the government’s over-reaction, going as far as to push mandatory vaccines on the public, is really the culprit?
De Blasio lead the way with vaccine requirements to enter restaurants and indoor entertainment in NYC. Now the president is pushing businesses all over the nation to require vaccines for all workers, and the newly sworn in ,NY Governor Kathy Hochel, in her first address to NY state, talked almost exclusively about vaccinating more people. This kind of message is contributing once more to an environment of fear, which is stalling the economic and psychological health of New York and the entire nation.
