I ask this as a New York resident: how many restaurants is one life worth? I was here back at the peak of the COVID outbreak when there were refrigerated trucks being loaded with bodies because the morgues had run out of space. It deeply, deeply sucks that a lot of restaurants are going to close. I hope that in time others will reopen in their place... it’s an underreported fact that a lot of restaurants close every year, I’ve had it happen to many favorites. New ones come.
To me personally, that loss is a price I’m willing to pay to stop the exponential increase of a pandemic. Maybe you’re right, though. Time will tell. Maybe the economic devastation will ruin NYC for years. Or maybe we’ll get the “v shaped recovery” we’ve been promised. Either way it’s too early to tell.