Mayor Adams, City Leaders Honor Lives Lost to Covid-19; Reflect on New York City’s Efforts to Treat, Test, Vaccinate, and Heal New Yorkers During the Pandemic

March 14, 2025

Watch the video here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEYlu1-qF0Y&t=3s

More Than 46,000 New Yorkers Died of COVID-19

More Than 7.5 Million People in New York City Have Received at Least One Dose of COVID-19 Vaccine — 91 Percent Vaccination Rate

New York City Administered More Than 14.5 Million COVID-19 Tests, Provided Over 150 Million Free At-Home COVID-19 Tests, More Than 300 Million Free Pieces of Personal Protective Equipment 

City Hall, Municipal Buildings to Be Lit Amber Tonight in Honor of Lives Lost, First Responders, Essential Workers Who Worked Tirelessly for Fellow New Yorkers

WATCH: Mayor Adams Marks COVID-19 Remembrance Day and Honors First Responders and Lives Lost

NEW YORK – New York City Mayor Eric Adams today honored city health care workers, first responders, essential workers, and those who lost their lives to COVID-19 on the fifth anniversary of the first confirmed death in the five boroughs from the global pandemic that saw New York City as its epicenter. Mayor Adams also announced today that City Hall and several other municipal buildings will be lit in amber tonight in honor of those who lost their lives and the first responders and essential workers who worked tirelessly to serve their fellow New Yorkers during the pandemic.

Since the pandemic was declared in the City of New York in 2020, there have been more than 3 million cases of COVID-19 in New York City, more than 240,000 hospitalizations, and more than 46,825 people have died from the virus. NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst became the epicenter of the pandemic, and as emergency departments flooded with sick patients across all five boroughs, health care heroes sprang into action, rushing to the frontlines to provide care for their patients and fight back against an unknown virus that, at the time, left the world wondering about its infectivity, diagnosis, and treatment.   

“More than 46,000 New Yorkers lost their lives to COVID-19 in the past five years — first responders, health care workers, teachers, essential workers, and more — but all of them left a whole were someone’s family,” said Mayor Adams. “Today, and every March 14 we will remember them. We will remember how the city came together to mask up, social distance, open up outdoor dining, test and trace, roll out vaccines, pivot to online learning, and work together in countless other ways to keep each other safe from the virus that took one too many of our fellow New Yorkers. Our administration’s mission is to make New York City a safe and affordable city, and we continue to re-commit to ensuring that New Yorkers are healthy and that we are prepared for any future crises.”

“Today, we honor our fellow New Yorkers lost due to COVID-19 and the contributions of all of our frontline workers who gave so much to help during such a trying time,” said Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom. “We will forever remember the parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, and other loved ones lost to the virus and we mark their memory today by lighting up City Hall and other buildings amber. It’s a reminder to hug our loved ones even tighter today and to share stories of those we lost. Thank you to all of our frontline workers for what you have done and continue to do for our city and to all those touched by the virus know that your city stands with you.”

“From the moment the first patients with COVID-19 came through the doors of Elmhurst Hospital and every day since, our brave health care heroes have worked on the frontlines 24 hours a day to make sure that all New Yorkers, without exception, have the life-saving care they need,” said NYC Health + Hospitals President and CEO Dr. Mitchell Katz. “Five years later, the lasting legacy of the pandemic for me is very clear — a strong public health system that works in lockstep with its sister agencies and that is guided by the engagement and trust of our communities is essential to the collective health of our city, and our best defense against whatever challenges we may face. Today, we are safer and stronger thanks to the extraordinary service of so many New Yorkers and the spirit of unity that defined our response.”

“Five years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic upended life and health in our city and across the entire world,” said New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) Acting Commissioner Dr. Michelle Morse. “I am thankful to the DOHMH staff who worked tirelessly to protect New Yorkers throughout the emergency phase of the pandemic. The tools we developed are still essential for protecting New Yorkers. Vaccination — our strongest defense against not only COVID-19 but many infectious diseases — remains readily available. DOHMH will always provide New Yorkers with the information they need to stay safe and healthy.”

“Our public schools are the centers of our communities. As the city battled COVID-19, our schools served as essential resource hubs for New Yorkers of all ages. When times became difficult, our school communities stepped up to ensure our students continued learning and to support our neighbors,” said New York City Public Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos. “From the food service workers who helped distribute meals to the public, to the school custodians who helped hand out critical PPE to families, our city is forever grateful for the immense dedication of our school staff.”

“The COVID-19 pandemic tested our city in ways we could have never imagined, yet the brave women and men of the NYPD stood unwavering in their duty to protect our communities,” said New York City Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch. “We will never forget those heroes — and every New Yorker — who lost their lives during this unprecedented time. And we will continue to stand side-by-side with every first responder and all those who work tirelessly to keep this city safe, no matter the cost.”

“On the fifth anniversary of COVID-19, I want to thank the men and women of the FDNY for the hard work and dedication they displayed during that dark time,” said Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) Commissioner Robert S. Tucker. "Our firefighters, EMTs, and paramedics responded to a record number of calls with compassion and empathy, putting themselves at risk at a time of such terrible loss for our city. We appreciate their service, then and now.”

“Five years after a state of emergency because of COVID-19 was declared in our city, New York City Emergency Management's commitment to 24/7 readiness endures,” said New York City Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol. “We carry with us the memory of lives lost, countless families forever changed, and the personal impact this crisis had on each of us as New Yorkers. During the pandemic, together with our city agency partners, we transformed vacant spaces into alternate care sites, delivered millions of meals to our neighbors, and surged medical personnel. We built isolation hotels, translated critical messages into 25 languages, and forged deep partnerships with community leaders, all while innovating by establishing 'cascading impacts' planning and remote emergency operations center activations to navigate the overlapping crises. Our city’s density, diverse communities, and the ever-evolving landscape of emergencies mean that our agency must remain dynamically adaptive. As we mark this somber anniversary, we reaffirm our dedication to ensuring that our agency remains the bedrock of New York City's preparedness and resilience, honoring the memory of those we lost by building a safer future for all.”

“On this fifth anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, we join our city in memory of all those lost and in appreciation for everyone who contributed to the response,” said New York City Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Jason Graham. “The pandemic tested our agency in ways not experienced since the World Trade Center attacks of 2001, and the dedicated public servants at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner met the challenge of a generation with nimbleness, innovation, and compassion. Our personnel embraced new roles, collaborated with partners across government and industry, and promptly stood up mortuary facilities to accommodate the largest influx of decedents in our history with dignity and care. In addition to helping local hospitals cope with the initial surge in deaths from COVID-19, our office established four disaster portable morgues and a long-term storage facility to care for thousands of decedents until they could be reunited with their families.”

New Yorkers sprang into action during the pandemic to stop the spread, social distance, get tested, and, eventually, get New Yorkers vaccinated. All city agencies worked to create initiatives to keep New Yorkers healthy and protect them from the virus. The city gave out more than 300 million pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE), using a whole-of-government approach to reach all corners of the city, including New York City Housing Authority residents and people with disabilities.

In an unprecedented move, New York City Public Schools administrators, teachers, and staff closed all schools and moved every classroom to remote learning to ensure that the city’s more than 1 million public school students could continue to learn. The city also opened Regional Enrichment Centers to serve as child care centers for first responders, health care workers, and transit workers while schools were closed to ensure health care and other essential services could continue uninterrupted. Additionally, New York City became the , with continued monitoring and testing for safety. Schools stayed open through several additional waves of spiking COVID-19 rates thanks to a robust test kit distribution strategy by the city.

New York City restaurants also pivoted to outdoor dining to help reduce the spread of COVID-19, and by doing so saved nearly 100,000 jobs for working-class New Yorkers. Today, thanks to the Adams administration, New York City has broken the total jobs record high for the 10th time since Mayor Adams took office with 4.86 million jobs. And since the pandemic, the outdoor dining program, now entitled “Dining Out NYC,” has become permanent — giving New Yorkers access to the largest permanent outdoor dining program in the country.

The led the largest municipal testing and contact tracing program in the country. At the peak of its operations, Test & Trace maintained a network of over 250 community-based and mobile testing sites, ensuring testing for COVID-19 was provided in neighborhoods with the least access to testing resources. Test & Trace was able to track more than 3 million cases of COVID-19 and close contacts of positive patients through its innovative program. Its contact tracing effort created millions of opportunities to break chains of transmission and provided those exposed the resources they needed to safely quarantine or isolate, including by providing 2.2 million free meals and over 600,000 care packages to those in isolation or quarantine. Test & Trace also created a Hotel Isolation program that helped over 33,000 people safely quarantine or recover from COVID-19 without unnecessarily exposing others.

Over the course of the pandemic, NYC Health + Hospitals, including Test & Trace, DOHMH, and hundreds of city and community partners administered more than 14.5 million COVID-19 tests and provided over 150 million free COVID-19 rapid antigen at-home tests.

Once COVID-19 vaccines became available, the city rolled out its efforts to vaccinate every New Yorker. The city’s vaccine campaign prevented an estimated 48,000 deaths, 300,000 hospitalizations, and 1.9 million cases of COVID-19. The Vaccine Command Center spearheaded the city’s fight against COVID-19 by providing real-time troubleshooting and rapid response across public and private providers, including urgent care centers, private pharmacies, hospitals, and community vaccination sites. The Vaccine Command Center established a fleet of mobile and traveling vaccination teams that ensured at least 90 percent of residents in the

DOHMH data shows that more than 7.5 million New Yorkers received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, a 91 percent citywide vaccination rate. Additionally, DOHMH’s Public Health Corps worked to close the vaccination gap and increase vaccination rates among Black and Latino New Yorkers. Their efforts resulted in linking and referring more than 1.1 million residents from priority communities to vaccination sites.

While COVID-19 is no longer considered a pandemic, New York City continues to connect New Yorkers with prevention and treatment for the virus. Updated vaccines are designed to protect against newer COVID-19 variants and to increase people’s protection against the virus. Updated vaccines can be found on the NYC Vaccine Finder. DOHMH also continues to offer free PCR testing at COVID-19 Express Testing sites and NYC Health + Hospitals offers treatment options for people experiencing “Long Covid” with AfterCare resources. DOHMH is also studying the impact of Long Covid among 10,000 New Yorkers.

DOHMH’s strong surveillance system, disease investigators, and premier public health lab allow DOHMH to collect and analyze COVID-19 and more than another 100 diseases from Tuberculosis to Human Immunodeficiency Virus, to food-borne illnesses like norovirus and salmonella in near real-time. During the COVID-19 pandemic, DOHMH established wastewater surveillance that was later used to detect the virus that causes polio following the identification of a case of polio in Rockland County in 2022. DOHMH’s current focus is on detection of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 and polio. NYC Health + Hospitals also works to continue monitoring for changes in COVID-19 and flu rates with its Biosurveillance Program, which tests wastewater for infectious diseases and has successfully predicted changes in COVID-19 and flu rates 10 to 14 days before those results are seen clinically at a hospital, and has expanded to test for polio and Mpox.

In 2024, NYC Health + Hospitals published a textbook so health care leaders and public health professionals could learn best practices for the next large-scale emergency response. “” shared what the largest municipal hospital system learned about responding to an unprecedented influx of inpatients, standing up a 24/7 contact tracing operation, distributing millions of vaccine doses, and managing health care worker burnout during a historic crisis.

Health recovery was just one piece of bringing New York City back to pre-pandemic life. Through Mayor Adams’ “Rebuild, Renew, Reinvent: A Blueprint for New York City’s Economic Recovery,” the Adams administration created a concrete plan that strengthened the city’s tourism and hospitality industries, supported small businesses, and helped bypass pre-pandemic employment numbers — taking them to the highest levels in city history.

To honor the New Yorkers who lost their lives to COVID-19, as well as the hard work of first responders, health care workers, and essential workers who worked to get the city through the pandemic City Hall and the following municipal buildings will be lit amber starting at sundown tonight:

• Brooklyn Borough Hall: 209 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
• The David N. Dinkins Manhattan Municipal Building: 1 Centre Street, New York, NY 10007
• Queens Borough Hall: 120-55 Queens Boulevard, Kew Gardens, NY 11424
• Staten Island Borough Hall: 10 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, NY 10301

“Five years since the COVID-19 pandemic struck Queens and the rest of New York and the nation, we remember all who have been impacted including those who tragically lost their lives,” said United States Congressmember Grace Meng. “We will always honor their memories, and we’ll never forget our essential workers, first responders and the heroic health care workers who were on the frontlines treating patients. As we fully recover from the coronavirus crisis, we need to ensure that we are building back better, stronger, more equitably, and with greater resiliency than ever before."

“The COVID-19 pandemic has been the most tumultuous time in history for most New Yorkers, who can vividly recall lines of ambulances and hospitals filled beyond capacity. COVID took the lives of over 46,000 of our fellow New Yorkers and hospitalized over 240,000, and we will never forget the heroic sacrifices of our healthcare workers, first responders, and other essential workers to keep our city running in an unprecedented crisis,” said State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar. “Our city made a valiant effort to contain the ravages of COVID, instituting essential social distancing, distributing 300 million pieces of PPE and 150 million tests, and eventually vaccinating 91 percent of New Yorkers. I myself turned my Office into a relief center where I distributed vital aid to the community. As we commemorate our navigation out of the darkest days of the pandemic, we must prepare for the future. We must continue to develop vaccines effective against breakthrough infections. Together, we will continue our unwavering commitment and make COVID history.”

"The impact of COVID-19 was felt around the world, but few places were hit harder than Queens — the epicenter of the epicenter of the pandemic at this point five years ago," said Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr.  "We would not have gotten through the pandemic without the dedication and sacrifices of our healthcare heroes, first responders, and essential workers who kept our city running during our darkest time. We salute them, remember all who lost their lives to the virus and recommit ourselves to fully funding vital health care institutions like Elmhurst Hospital.”