The number, 3. 25%, is due to an increase in cases in nine neighborhoods in the Brooklyn and Queens districts, authorities said. On Tuesday, they accounted for more than 25. 6% of new cases in the city in the past two weeks. only 7. 4% of the city’s total population, according to the city’s fitness department. The average 14-day positivity rate in the nine zip codes ranged from 3. 31% to 6. 92% on Tuesday.
“We are deeply involved with the alarming accumulation of COVID-19 in the Brooklyn and Queens zip codes,” New York Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi said at a press conference Tuesday.
City officials began sounding the alarm about the increases last week. As of September 19, six neighborhoods accounted for 20% of all COVID-19 cases in the city. The spaces in question included neighborhoods with giant Orthodox Jewish populations, and officials warned that meetings during Primary Jewish Holidays and a general lack of respect for masks can simply spread the virus.
The city has tried to address this building by making automatic calls in English and Yiddish, driving trucks in neighborhoods by delivering messages, deploying cell verification equipment in various neighborhoods, and distributing masks, gloves and hand sanitist to residents. another three hundred synagogues, Dr Mitchell Katz, head of the city’s public hospital system, said Tuesday.
“Several leaders reported that in their synagogues, everyone wore masks and others kept their distance. So I know the paintings are underway and have been successful,” Katz said Tuesday.
But with positivity rates rising, the city says it will increase Array On Wednesday, plan to build an immediate capatown at 3 checkpoints that pass through city hospitals and load an immediate new capaurban into the offices of network providers in Orthodox neighborhoods, Katz said.
Mayor Bill de Blasio also announced a new masking app. “Anyone who refuses to wear a mask will be told that if they don’t wear one, they will be fined,” he said at Tuesday’s press conference.
Also, any private school or day care center that doesn’t meet the city’s fitness rules will also close, he said. Other measures, such as adding non-essential end businesses and restricting meetings, may also take effect in the data, the mayor said. .
“Everything is on the table, ” said De Blasio. ” We don’t need to do anything, but it’s all on the table if we don’t see enough progress temporarily.
During the pandemic, New York City was one of the country’s earliest and hardest-hit cities, but as of Tuesday, the virus’s population rate across the city was 1. 38% on a seven-day moving average, as the city continues its slow reopening. . For the first time since March, about 300,000 students from public elementary schools returned to elegance on Tuesday. Middle and high school students appear at the end of the week.
On Wednesday, the city will also allow indoor restoration, banned since March, to return to 25% of its capacity.
“We fought as hard as New Yorkers,” Katz said. ” We abandon the progress that has allowed us to reopen our city. “
Beyond New York City, other parts of New York State are also experiencing an increase in COVID-19 cases. State-wide, there are 20 zip codes with an average positive verification rate of 5%, five times the state average, Gov. Andrew said. Cuomo said Tuesday. Brooklyn groups, as well as Rockland and Orange counties, overlap giant Orthodox Jewish communities, he said.
“It’s a fact, so I’ll meet with them directly to communicate it,” Cuomo said in his briefing on the coronavirus. “This is a public fitness factor for your community. It is also a public aptitude challenge for surrounding communities. “. “
While officials pledged to paint with Orthodox Jewish leaders, some have highlighted a “lingering distrust” in network paintings stemming from the city’s remedy of other Hasidic mourners at a funeral in Brooklyn in April in opposition to protesters. Black Lives Matter a month later.
“The Jasidim were seriously criticized through the mayor of Blasio, who called his presence “absolutely unacceptable. “Those who protested racial injustice were welcomed and encouraged,” said Avi Schick, former New York State Deputy Attorney General and President of Rabbi Jacob Joseph School, and David Zwiebel, Executive Vice President of Agudath Israel of America, wrote in a editorial published Tuesday in the New York Daily News: “It’s not about comparing the two problems , but to emphasize why the Hasidic network remains skeptical about whether the city takes its devotion to worship, education and devout rituals as seriously as it takes the priorities of other communities. “
His editorial “clearly and succinctly explains the double popularity that Orthodox Jews feel subdued to in New York,” Brooklyn board member Chaim Deutsch said on social media. “Yes, we can and will do better. It is also vital to perceive where mistrust comes from. “
Avi Greenstein, executive director of Boro Park Community Council, a Brooklyn social services organization in Borough Park, one of the high-rate case areas, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the city is focused on raising awareness.
“You have to do that, ” he said to the AP. ” We don’t have to threaten fines. “
Aaron Katersky and J. Gabriel Ware of ABC News contributed to this report.
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