I'm sorry but objectively speaking, what you are saying isn't fully accurate. COVID shut down the national economy. As is typically the case when the economy and employment rates decline, crime goes up and COVID and its short term effects were no exception. Making it sound like we should be beyond COVID is a bit of an over-simplification -- yes in theory we are beyond the pandemic stage but we are still suffering from indirect effects particularly with the economy, supply-chain issues, etc. I think sane minds can agree the economy still hasn't recovered fully. Just because we aren't dealing with something in our faces doesn't mean its effects aren't there. The timing of the COVID waves too isn't really relevant - neither NYC nor the rest of the country operates within its own bubble, just not how society or economies work. When NYC shut down first, it still had ripple effects across the country despite the virus not being nationally widespread yet.

On an aside, I also question the validity of your statement about our crime rates increasing at a larger rate compared to other large US cities but I don't have hard statistics to support my skepticism. Care to link for my own education?