NEW YORK (AP) — New York City’s mayor said Sunday that he has asked the state for permission to close schools and reinstate restrictions on nonessential businesses in several neighborhoods because of a resurgence of the coronavirus.
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The action, if approved, would mark a disheartening retreat for a city that enjoyed a summer with less spread of the virus than most other parts of the country, and had only recently celebrated the return of students citywide to in-person learning in classrooms.
Shutdowns would happen starting Wednesday in nine ZIP codes in the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
About 100 public schools and 200 private schools would have to close. Indoor dining, which just resumed a few days ago, would be suspended. Outdoor restaurant dining would shut down in the affected neighborhoods as well, and gyms would close.
Houses of worship would be allowed to remain open with existing restrictions in place, de Blasio said.
The mayor, a Democrat, said he was taking the action in an attempt to stop the virus from spreading deeper into the city and becoming a “second wave,” like the one that killed more than 24,000 New Yorkers in the spring.
“We’ve learned over and over from this disease that it is important to act aggressively, and when the data tells us it’s time for even the toughest and most rigorous actions we follow the data, we follow the science,” de Blasio said.
Over the past two weeks, the number of new cases of the virus has been rising in pockets of the city, predominantly in neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens that are home to the city’s large Orthodox Jewish population.
Nearly 1,100 people have tested positive in Brooklyn in just the last four days, according to state figures.
De Blasio made the announcement shortly after Gov. Andrew Cuomo complained that local governments with coronavirus hot spots had “not done an effective job” of enforcing social distancing rules.
“If a local jurisdiction cannot or will not perform effective enforcement of violating entities, notify the state and we will close all business activity in the hot spots where the local governments cannot do compliance,” Cuomo said.
Cuomo did not immediately comment on de Blasio’s proposed shutdown in the areas where the virus is spiking.
As many as 500,000 people live in the neighborhoods affected by the proposed shutdown, de Blasio said. He said the lockdown could be lifted in 14 days or 28 days if the percentage of people testing positive for COVID-19 declines.
The coronavirus was estimated to have hit between 1 and 2 million people in New York City, mostly in the spring before testing was widely available. Thousands of people fell ill each day. By the summer’s end, the city appeared to have the virus partly in check, averaging fewer than 240 new cases per day citywide as recently as Sept. 7.
Overall, the city’s infection rate remains relatively low, with around 420 new cases a day over the past few days, but those have been concentrated in a handful of neighborhoods. The nine ZIP codes singled out by the mayor have been responsible for more than 20% of all new infections in the city over the past four weeks, though they represent only 7% of the population.
De Blasio had said in the past that public schools were largely unaffected by the rise in virus infections in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, but he said Sunday that public schools in the hot spot neighborhoods would be closed “out of an abundance of caution.”
United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew praised the decision. “This is the right decision, one that helps protect our schools, our neighborhoods, and ultimately our city,” Mulgrew said Sunday.
The staff at Public School 164 in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn, one of the affected neighborhoods, sent a letter to de Blasio on Thursday demanding that the school be closed.
Teacher Frances Hidalgo said it was unrealistic to think the school would be immune from infection when students and staff interact with people in the neighborhood daily.
Hidalgo, a fourth grade teacher, pointed to the high positivity rate in Borough Park. “We don’t live in a bubble. We’re part of the neighborhood,” she said in a phone interview Saturday.
The virus is even worse in black neighborhoods. Deblasio is not admitting to that. Also he is getting tremendous flak from the teachers union for opening schools since some teachers got it. this means it is bad or even worse in non Jewish neighborhoods. Stop reporting biased news the way the mayor would like to portray it. I am done with quarantine, that’s for sure. I quarantined with my entire family including a 2 week old baby, at the time, from after purim, until lag baomer. we did not go out at all, or play with neighbors. We had all groceries, dry goods, hardware delivered. Guess what, I am fed up. We FLATTENED the curve. Hospitals are not overwhelmed even though they have some cases. We don’t hear hatzoloh all hours of day and night, bh. I am planning to go out every day with my kids. I am not sitting home. I need fresh air and I need SANITY. let me tell you, if there is another lockdown, people who have summer homes will be running to the catskills again. People will be renting homes. People will be in the parks. Let’s be honest, mothers of kids need sanity and sitting home with them is the worst thing for all of them.
Diblasio is missing the key rate which is the death rate
. The deathe rate in these area has been extremely low. Some of the zip code have been a death rate of zero for quite a long time.
If the world had that rate this epidemic wouldn”t be considered worth all the disruptions.
What is it going to take before Yidden in these communities stop being so arrogant and selfish and do the right thing to prevent the spread of coronavirus? Having other New Yorkers start referring to the coronavirus as Jew-virus?
Open the yeshivas in front of Gracie mansion and call it a protest. Every child should come with their rebbi and sit in a circle in the middle of the street and start learning torah.
To promote this picture isn’t really fair because it portrays the impression that no one is wearing masks when in reality many, many are wearing. The news story is following the goyishe news who are actively seeking pictures like this couple who are not wearing masks. It is an unfair portrayal because it casts major negative reactionary comments.
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page
This is the current map. The worst affected are NOT jewish neighborhoods. Corona queens and Fordham in bronx and east New York are from the top ones. Yes some jewish neighborhoods have plenty of cases, but if you check the map they are the medium ones, not the worst ones. Please check facts before you repeat deblasio’s lies
The data of 11219 Borough Park is on Shabbos 3.9% positive cases, and on friday 4% positive, and we all know Yidden don’t test themselves on Shabbos or Yom Tov, (because it is not Pikuach Nefesh) unless they are admitted to a hospital, so it must be that all or most cases are not coming from the Yidden!
Cuomo has the last word on this lockdown, and so far he hasn’t endorsed the lockdown, so lets wait and see what will happen.
What are the 9 zip codes??
Maybe more people who are healthy and well should get tested and that would lower the positive infection proportion. It seems like only people who are not feeling well are getting tested.
This would be yet another stupid move by this stupid mayor of New York City.
It’s not up to the mayor or the governor to decide what is essential and what is not essential. Everyone’s business is essential! Whatever everyone has to do is essential. We don’t leave things up to elected officials to decide what’s essential and what’s not essential.
Askonim say the reason the rates are higher in these zip codes is because religous people do not test until and unless they do not feel well so the pozitive rate is obviously high. Whereas, in most other NYC communities you cant enter a public office or school or even a private office building unless you are tested.
The answer is that we ALL go to test. This way there will be a mixture of healthy and no healthy people in the results and the results should show our community with much lower rates than the surrounding areas.
SO RABOSAI, WHY DONT WE ALL GO TEST TODAY! YES, LETS GET TESTED TODAY ! WHETHER YOU FEEL GOOD OR NOT OR IF YOU HAVE BEEN TESTED PREVIOUSLY OR IF YOU HAVE ANTI-BODIES OR NOT, YOU CAN GET TESTED ON 18TH AVENUE AT THE PARK OR BY YOUR DOCTOR.
Unfortunately this is necessary. The stubborn people who refuse to listen to Rabbonim and physicians are now getting sick and threaten to spread it into the general population. Forget about the Chilul Hashem they’re making, apparently they don’t get about that.
Thanks aguda for selling us out for a few bucks to an anti semite
Is it going to take these areas becoming no go zone open air prison ghettos before we finally just follow the rules? How hard is it to just do the bare minimum for the optics because the whole nation is watching us and already blames us for the first outbreak!
When we have 7-12 kids in a household , of course we have higher positivity rates, but its confined to the same household or family. Time to count ‘infected households’ vs ‘people’. We’re not that far…
We need to cooperate with all closures but defy and resist all orders to close schools .
Kids do not spread the virus significantly to adults . And schools are essential . Even more so for frum Torah jews without zoom .
Notice , chasana occurred and almost alll attendees got covid . Schools were open with a spread , a few kids got it but we have found large spreads of 100 kids like we are by weddings nor are parents of the school getting it
Looks like Williamsburg is BH not on the list. I hope the mosdos after sukkos are smart and lets bus the kids to Williamsburg. Rent space and halls there etc..
DeBlasio is an evil racist. Edgemere is an all African-American neighborhood. He’s only shutting down that community because the residents are black. If it was white, he would never dare shut it down. I thought the Mayor was above the hate and bigotry. I thought wrong. DeBlasio is a disgrace.