In his address to the media on Friday, the day after the State of the City, the mayor said that the city workforce would be back in their offices by May, and in my mind that’s not a moment too soon. Nearly every restaurant, barbershop and bodega east of Church depends on them, and those businesses are on the brink now.

“We want to send a signal to this whole city we’re moving forward,” the mayor said. “We want to see the private sector bring workforces back. We are going to have an entirely different situation as we proceed into the spring.”

This is a very different message than the one coming from the local big corporations, like Citi and Goldman, which are talking about year end, but if the city’s plan works, that will certainly help our street life downtown.

Part of this hinges on his plan to get the city vaccinated, which to date has not been so successful due to low supply. Already city vaccination centers have opened and closed and opened again, and nearly everyone has reported a fierce scramble to get appointments. (In 1947, it took just one month for the city to vaccinate 6.35 million New Yorkers against smallpox.)

So this is the plan now: “We’re going for an aggressive goal – five million workers vaccinated by June. I am absolutely certain we can do it…So long as we have the supply, we can reach five million New Yorkers in June, get to a point of community immunity. Look, this is crucial that we now know we can do half a million vaccinations in a week. Supply is there. We’re going to do something amazing.”