> Generally though, I’m concerned that other states and municipalities aren’t going to deal with a resurgence as well as the NYC metro area might. My family lives in New Jersey, so I’d be comfortable going out there if I felt that I had to, but I’d absolutely prefer paying to stay in NYC over returning to family living in most of the other US states.

You have to keep in mind that COVID wasn't much of a problem in the rest of America to begin with. Daily deaths in NJ have ranged from 34-132 for the month of June. In Florida, which has twice as many people, it's been 7-70. In Texas, which has three times as many people, it's been 6-47. Here in Maryland, which is a bit smaller than NJ, the highest count ever was 74 in early May, back when NJ was seeing 350+ deaths per day.

We'll see how those numbers react to recent case number spikes, but there is nothing about the situation in New York that would encourage me that NYC will handle the resurgence better. The same factors that caused NY and NJ to be hit devastatingly hard off the bat (density, population mobility) will remain liabilities as things reopen.