Six weeks ago, Miguel Baez, who owns the Bodega Gourmet Deli in the Bronx, noticed something alarming. The cashier and the deli attendant were coughing incessantly and telling him their bodies ached.

Then he found out one of the guys who worked at a nearby market died of COVID-19.

And so Baez closed his bodega, which he said is one of the main food suppliers in his neighborhood.

In New York City, these small shops sell everything from chopped cheese sandwiches to cartons of milk and rolls of toilet paper. Some neighborhoods depend on them as main suppliers of essential goods, especially in low-income communities, said Karan Girotra of Cornell University.

“Big chains and others don’t find [these neighborhoods] profitable enough to sell. And the small kind of store has filled in that gap,” he said.

Francisco Marte’s bodegas are open, but he says it’s been challenging.

In New York, the Bronx is among the hardest hit areas by COVID-19. Francisco Marte owns three bodegas in the Bronx, and he heads up the Bodega and Small Business Association in New York.

“People come to hang out at the store when they leave work, when they have some troubles to discuss,” he said.

But that closeness has become a liability. Hundreds of bodegas in Marte’s association have had to close.

Earlier this week, lawmakers set aside an additional $310 billion in aid to small businesses.

Baez, the owner of Gourmet Deli, has not applied for any loans. He’s heard from other owners that the process is a bureaucratic nightmare. But he’s thinking about asking for help now.

“It’s been chaos,” he said. “Electrical bills and rent are still due. Food has gone bad.”

Meanwhile, Marte’s bodegas are still open for business. It’s not easy.

But he thinks back to the ’80s, when he was a teenager, and he moved from the Dominican Republic to the Bronx.

“In the ’80s, ’90s we [bodega owners] risked our lives being in dangerous areas,” he said.

He got his first bodega at a discount because it was such a rough neighborhood.

He was robbed, got into fistfights, and he was shot. But he’s still a bodeguero, and says he’s here to stay.

COVID-19 Economy FAQs What does the unemployment picture look like? It depends on where you live. The national unemployment rate has fallen from nearly 15% in April down to 8.4% percent last month. That number, however, masks some big differences in how states are recovering from the huge job losses resulting from the pandemic. Nevada, Hawaii, California and New York have unemployment rates ranging from 11% to more than 13%. Unemployment rates in Idaho, Nebraska, South Dakota and Vermont have now fallen below 5%. Will it work to fine people who refuse to wear a mask? Travelers in the New York City transit system are subject to $50 fines for not wearing masks. It’s one of many jurisdictions imposing financial penalties: It’s $220 in Singapore, $130 in the United Kingdom and a whopping $400 in Glendale, California. And losses loom larger than gains, behavioral scientists say. So that principle suggests that for policymakers trying to nudge people’s public behavior, it may be better to take away than to give. How are restaurants recovering? Nearly 100,000 restaurants are closed either permanently or for the long term — nearly 1 in 6, according to a new survey by the National Restaurant Association. Almost 4.5 million jobs still haven’t come back. Some restaurants have been able to get by on innovation, focusing on delivery, selling meal or cocktail kits, dining outside — though that option that will disappear in northern states as temperatures fall. But however you slice it, one analyst said, the United States will end the year with fewer restaurants than it began with. And it’s the larger chains that are more likely to survive. Read More Collapse