New York is not the only metropolis in the world struggling with how to safely reopen businesses and cultural centers in a dense urban settings, but no city has been more devastated by the pandemic.

The virus has claimed more than 13,000 lives in New York City, a figure that includes roughly 4,400 victims who had never tested positive for the virus but were presumed to have died of it.

President Trump has sought swift reopenings across the United States. And on Monday, three Southern states moved toward doing so: South Carolina allowed retail shops to open with social distancing guidelines, and the governors of Georgia and Tennessee announced plans to soon ease restrictions on businesses.

But in New York City, interviews with more than two dozen business executives, city and state officials and industry groups revealed the depths of the difficulties in doing the same, especially when the coronavirus is still filling hospitals and hundreds are still dying each day.

The city’s Independent Budget Office forecast that 475,000 people would lose their jobs over the next year; other economists have put the job loss far higher: 1.2 million by the end of April, mostly in low-wage jobs in restaurants, retail or transportation.

And whole industries, gone overnight, do not as quickly return.

In the late 1970s, “It took four or five years for a lot of the city to empty out,” said Kathryn Wylde, the president of the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit business group. “It took three or four decades to bring them back.”