A pause in NYC to recall pandemic's impact, 5 years later
New York City Hall and the Municipal Building behind it are lit Friday night in amber to mark five years since the city's first confirmed COVID-19 death. Credit: Newsday/Matthew Chayes
Over 46,000 dead from coronavirus in New York City. Three million sickened. The city, the world, life as everyone knew it, locked down.
On Friday, city leaders gathered at one of the pandemic's hardest-hit hospitals and marked five years since the city's first confirmed COVID-19 pandemic death.
City Hall in Manhattan and the nearby Municipal Building were slated to be cast Friday night in amber light to memorialize those who died from the virus and honor the first responders and essential workers who labored through the pandemic to keep the city functioning.
"COVID was not terrorism, but it brought terror, and we’re still feeling that terror, if we’re honest with ourselves. Some of the byproduct of some of the mental health issues we’re facing is attached to COVID-19," Mayor Eric Adams said Friday morning at a ceremony at NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst in Queens, which was an epicenter of pandemic response.
Adams’ predecessor, former Mayor Bill de Blasio, also marked the anniversary there Friday, calling the hospital sacred ground.
"We are very quick as a society to commemorate where battles happened, where people were killed," de Blasio said at the ceremony.
He added: "We love to talk about the battles when they’re military. But what about the battle that happened here? What about the battle to not take life but to save life? What about the heroism of every single health care worker?"
The former mayor recalled how hospital staff came together for days, weeks, months and then years, battling to provide compassion and save lives.
“When things got tough around here, some people went to the Hamptons, and other people went to the front line to fight,” De Blasio said.
Dr. Mitch Katz, who’s in charge of the city’s public health and hospital system, recalled at Friday's ceremony how years later, the pandemic’s long shadow continued to cast a pall — including over the clinicians who work on the front lines of treating the sick and dying.
"We had lost many of our co-workers, we had lost many patients, we were very brave," Katz said. "We had taken care of people as best we could. It was very difficult."
Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.
