If you look at the number of cases and number of deaths (December 7th New York, John Hopkins) in New York it's obvious that deaths are not aligned with cases anymore. What's going on here? The same thing is happening in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Covid-19 hit many states hard last Spring and now those states are not experiencing a death rate that justifies more lock downs as cases spike.
As a nation we could prevent nearly 5,800 cars being hit by trains each year if we ONLY invested in improved railroad crossings and built more bridges. But the cost of this would be too massive to justify the expenditure so it would seem that doing everything to save lives does have a limit. Just like the cost of shutting down businesses in New York has a limit. It's very possible that large cities reliant on mass transit will take years to recover long after the memory of Covid fades.