After being incredibly careful for months, even Rapaport admits that the absence of new instances has made him feel a little more comfortable. But the way the network was given is something I wouldn’t repeat if I had the chance.
“It’s nothing that makes me happy, ” he said. “Enjoying evil is something that makes me sad. But I can’t complain that other people live in the truth that exists.”
The window to “flatten the curve,” as public fitness officials suggested to the public do at the beginning of the pandemic, in Brooklyn’s tight-knit Jewish communities it would probably have ended long before government officials began advising New Yorkers to start socializing. distance and wear masks.
This is because most instances in the community, according to many, occurred in the previous days and in the Jewish holiday of Purim on March 9 and 10. While the mayor and governor were still days away from the closure of schools and businesses, parties and prayer facilities in Purim sowed the epidemic in Crown Heights, Borough Park and other neighborhoods with giant Jewish communities.
“Purim came here at a very bad time in the epidemic,” Eili Klein, an emergency medicine professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in April. “The virus was just beginning to spread into the community, and congregations of others close to others could have allowed the small number of other inflamed people to spread it more widely than they could in a different way.”
A week later, there were just over 800 cases of coronavirus in New York. More than a hundred came here from a single clinic in Borough Park that caters to Orthodox Jews.
That was the beginning. Over the coming weeks, the communities were ravaged by the disease. Death notices were posted hourly on Jewish news sites. Burial societies worked continuously and ran out of the shrouds required to lay the dead to rest. Funeral homes recruited people with SUVs to transport bodies they lacked the capacity to handle.
And then, just as it started, the speed slowed down. A giant funeral company in Brooklyn said the volume of corpses in unprepared burial had decreased two weeks after Easter, which ended in mid-April. They had 700 bodies ready for burial during an era where they would usually have 100 ready.
Widespread efforts to distance socially have begun to decline in some ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, namely Williamsburg and Borough Park. After thousands of people piled up on the streets of Williamsburg last April for the funeral of a dead COVID-19 rabbi, de Blasio called “the Jewish community” for not following the guidelines of social estrangement. Two days after the sleep, some other funeral in Borough Park attracted a giant crowd that city police scattered. Some yeshivas have to reopen illegally, with categories in basements or in teachers’ houses.
Abandoning social estrangement might have seemed arrogant, however, some members of the network say it is inevitable.
“They can’t distance themselves socially because they can’t be locked up, because they’ve selected a way of life where they should be locked up,” said one guy from their community’s ultra-Orthodox park, pointing out that this is not the case. it is not often that a circle of relatives of 10 or 12 people live in a two- or three-bedroom apartment. “Yes, other people are going to die, but they don’t have any better options.”
There are no spikes in cases to adhere to in those neighborhoods, according to fitness professionals, reinforcing the feeling for many that the danger had passed.
Meanwhile, an organization of local doctors running to monitor COVID-19 instances on Crown Heights’ ultra-Orthodox network, where estrangement rules gave the impression of being more widely followed during a longer era, found that new local symptomatic instances peaked March. 15. It was only five days after Purim and weeks before the new instances of the city reached their peak, at a widespread distance.
Doctors began working in a combination in March under the auspices of the Gedaliah Society, a professional progress organization operating in relative darkness before the pandemic, but which has temporarily become an authority on the community’s reaction to the crisis.
Using a form of Google posted on a blog and on social media, doctors asked local citizens to report their symptoms themselves when they started symptoms and other forms of modification that would help doctors perceive the extent to which the virus had spread.
More than 3,500 people temporarily responded to an upcoming survey by asking respondents for antibody verification results, leading doctors to estimate that most members of the network would likely have antibodies. They estimated that just over 70% of adults in the 25- to 65-year-old network had “suffered COVID-type symptoms.” Among adults over the age of 65, 55% said they had been sick.
Without random testing, it’s knowing the true penetration of the virus in Crown Heights. But doctors’ estimates would position the network in diversity that scientists say likely confers collective immunity, meaning that a sufficient portion of the network has recovered from a disease or been inoculated with a vaccine to particularly mitigate or prevent the spread of the disease. on the net.
That’s exactly what the doctors said they saw.
“On our small island in Crown Heights, we’ve had few new instances in recent weeks,” they wrote on May 11.
The scenario had taken a step forward with its June 5 update, when any new instances in the community were reported.
“Presumably, this is due to the Crown Heights giant that has already been affected, which gives us a really broad degree of immunity as a community,” the doctors wrote on June 5.
At the end of June, they replied that they were aware of any new local cases.
Crown Heights research targeting a single neighborhood, however, Borough Park and Williamsburg, two other neighborhoods with major Jewish populations, seem to have had an experience.
Overall, it shows that many other people in New York have already had COVID-19. In May, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said an antibody test showed 19.9% positive across the city and 29% positive in Brooklyn. A test published in early June on more than 28,000 antibody verification effects on the New York domain showed that 44% of respondents who went to clinics for antibody checks had antibodies. (This exam has not yet been submitted to the peer review process).
But none of these studies provides an image of the stage in ultra-Orthodox communities, which are insular. Even the city’s data, damaged by the zip code, is an imperfect measure for communities that are distributed in various zip codes that come with many non-Jews.
“What’s more useful is what we get from the network’s fitness centers, where other Jews will be evaluated for their antibodies,” said Blimi Marcus, a nurse practitioner who lives in Borough Park and has been a great advocate for the Orthodox network. stay at home to prevent the spread of the virus. “And the numbers are high.”
Administrators and providers of 4 physical care clinics in Brooklyn’s Hasidic neighborhoods told JTA that they discovered degrees of positive antibodies well above the city’s data.
“In the first weeks they provided it, positive grades ranged from 55 to 60%,” said Yosef Hershkop, regional director of kamin Health, about testing at his clinic.
Kamin Health has sites in Crown Heights, Borough Park, Williamsburg and Queens, and has performed thousands of antibody tests at all 4 sites. Hershkop said the percentage of antibody tests that yielded positive results had decreased in recent weeks, but still above 50%.
Gary Schlesinger, CEO of Parcare, a chain of physical care clinics, said his clinics in Williamsburg and Borough Park had antibody grades of 70-74%.
Nosson Hayum, a nurse practitioner at Perfect Health Medical Center in Borough Park, said the first effects showed that teens online had the rates of positive antibody verification effects.
A physical care manager at a giant clinic in Williamsburg that basically treats Hasidic patients said she had noticed positive antibody effects of about 40%. But that number has increased to 75% when you look at men between the ages of 18 and 34.
“It makes sense if you look at the other people we serve,” said the Administrator of Williamsburg, noting that men in ultra-Orthodox communities have the ultimate outdoor active life, frequent the synagogue and read in yeshiva.
A maximum infection rate among young men is only one component of the community’s antibody image. Jasidic communities tend to be younger on average, with couples having up to 8 or younger. According to the city’s most recent demographics, just over 50% of Borough Park’s population is 24 years of age or older and 14% are under the age of 6. There is developing evidence that recommends that young young people likely be high to be coronavirus transmission resources, meaning that ultra-Orthodox communities necessarily have a disproportionately high percentage of dead spots for the virus, or at least a higher proportion of other people who are less likely to become seriously ill.
Schlesinger, who is not a doctor, does not say it knows why the network has noticed so few cases despite the reopening of synagogues and schools. But if you assume that antibodies confer immunity, he said, the numbers involve collective immunity.
But Dr. Aaron Glatt, leader of infectious diseases and hospital epidemiologist at Mount South Sinai Nassau on Long Island and an Orthodox rabbi, questioned whether knowledge of local clinics or teams such as the Gedaliah Society in Crown Heights can show that a network has achieved collective work. Immunity.
“Unless you get a random pattern from the community, statistically, it’s a zero value,” he said.
However, several epidemiologists and physicians who read the new coronavirus have identified that it would be conceivable that ultra-Orthodox communities would have the best levels of positive antibodies and coverage they can provide.
“I think there are probably segments, enclaves, whatever, where a large number of other people in the orthodox network have become inflamed and recovered, and therefore a primary epidemic among this organization is unlikely,” said Dr. Michael Joyner, an anesthesiologist at Mayo Clinic, who leads a national examination on the effects of convalescent plasma on the remedy of COVID-19 patients. Ultra-Orthodox young men were among the first participants in the exam and constituted a significant percentage of plasma donors.
“Major leads to a closer choice of some collective immunity,” said Dr. Gary Slutkin, an epidemiologist who has worked with the World Health Organization for more than 10 years on AIDS systems in Africa.
Both Slutkin and Joyner warned that between 50% and 80% of the population would be immunized against the disease to particularly mitigate the spread of the virus. Self-selection in the effects of antibody testing only makes higher estimates a presumption, and there are also many things that are still unknown about antibodies opposed to coronaviruses, adding whether they confer immunity, how long this immunity lasts, and whether all immuno-Americans will. to achieve positive effects.
Because of these questions, the prevailing advice among public health officials is that even people with antibodies should continue to wear masks and practice distancing.
But residents of some New York Jewish neighborhoods say masks are an uncommon sight on streets that are bustling again, much as they were before the pandemic hit.
“It’s just taken for granted,” said one Borough Park woman about the concept that collective immunity protects the community. “Now I walk and I don’t see dress in a mask.”
Even some members of the network who expressed fear at first return to general and say they are convinced that collective immunity has been established.
“If not, how do you make 0 instances after months of crowded [synagogues], open schools, massive marriages?” asked a boy from Borough Park.
As summer warmed, parts of the ultra-Orthodox network began the same old summer rituals. Day camps were opened, but with temperature controls and other restrictions. The young men were packed in night camps this year in other states because New York does not allow them to operate. Wedding halls have reopened large unmasked crowds. And portions of Brooklyn were emptied when families moved to bungalow colonies in the mountains.
Chanie Apfelbaum, an influential Brooklyn Instagram who moved into a bungalow over the summer, responded to a follower about whether others maintained their social estrangement.
“It’s hard with children, more like impossible,” he wrote. “Most other people here have had antibodies and have antibodies.”
All of this is possible, said one administrator of Park’s fitness center, due to the higher rate of early infection.
“The [religious] community had an advantage over everybody because they were mingling on Purim and all these other times,” he said. “It paid off.”
But while the effects of this experiment in collective immunity could be encouraging, the burden on which they were acquired has been high.
“We pay terrible value to achieve this statistic that is more than double that of our neighbors in Flatbush, and indeed much more than that of New York, or anywhere else in the country,” Gedaliah said, the corporation wrote on May 20. “This maximum rate of infections across the community will allow us, with God’s help, the virus to reactivate and spread locally, putting other vulnerable people at high risk.
And the veil of normality, and the pain of loss, there are deep and troubling questions about the degree of network security.
One concern is that other older people and others at higher risk will continue to be isolated by the worry of becoming inflamed now that communities have eased their restrictions.
Few of these people, who would possibly have strayed away from themselves before and more absolutely than others, probably have antibodies.
Glatt, the doctor and rabbi, said the antibody positive rates could be inflated because those people are continuing to stay home.
“If all the other people who are afraid of fainting are not examined, it will be an artificially higher number,” he said.
And as instances jump elsewhere, there is also a growing threat that new instances will likely be incorporated into the network, while the local network component remains vulnerable to infection.
In Crown Heights, a pilgrimage position for visitors from around the world, local leaders urge travelers to stay in their homes.
“Those from other communities, please avoid making a stop in Crown Heights for now. This is even more critical when it comes to other people from critical states “like Florida and California, where unfortunately cases are on the rise,” the doctors wrote in a statement. Article of 26 June that also does not serve food after the services of the synagogue. “Similarly, those who recently live in Crown Heights are asked not to stop in those states at this time.”
By early July, the doctors’ fears had materialized. First, they had encountered a troubling case about a case of possible reinfection in the community. Then, earlier this week, someone who had traveled to one of those hot spots tested positive upon returning to Brooklyn.
“On the one hand, it is reassuring that this is a case of “network spread,” as has been published elsewhere,” the doctors wrote. “On the other hand, this is how the network propagation can begin.”
They asked for continuous caution and 40 days for those traveling to spaces where the number of infections is increasing.
How communities resist summer camps and season can provide more information about their vulnerability to the virus.
The more people in a network have signs of immunity, the slower the spread of the virus, network members would possibly still be at risk. This causes Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn to watch the pandemic enter its next phase.
“It’s all or nothing,” said Joyner, an anesthesiologist at the Mayo Clinic.
He added: “This will make it harder for mega-fire disease to occur. But more complicated means they will happen.”