For months, the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has been working with academic groups at Columbia University and New York University. The academic teams have been asked to model case numbers, help predict needed hospital resources and to advise the city on how to open up workplaces, schools, restaurants and more.

The disclosure Tuesday of a Covid-19 case at the New York offices of JPMorgan Chase & Co. is likely just the latest example of what will happen as businesses push to get workers back to the office, and people begin going back to school and returning to restaurants and gyms…

One of the Columbia models, released in June as the city was beginning to reopen, predicted tens of thousands of additional hospitalizations by the end of the year, though the estimates vary widely based on how quickly services were opened and how effective public-health measures are.

“It’s inherently crude. We just don’t know the nuance of what’s going to happen,” Shaman said. “You open up more, you’re getting it worse.”