New York City plans to close schools, restaurants and non-essential businesses in nine neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens. The number of Covid-19 cases has been picking up again for two weeks.
The measure will take effect from Wednesday and for at least two weeks, Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Sunday. He stressed to wait for the approval of the governor of the State to confirm this decision.
This is an unprecedented flashback for the first American metropolis to become a model of caution in the face of the new coronavirus. Governor Andrew Cuomo, with strained relations with Bill De Blasio, did not immediately respond to his request.
“Today is unfortunately not a day of celebration […] New Yorkers have worked hard to bring Covid-19 under control and we are not making this proposal lightly, ”said the councilor. “But in this city, science guides our decisions, and we do what the facts tell us to do,” he added, in an implicit criticism of President Donald Trump’s government and accused Republicans. for taking the virus lightly.
11 other neighborhoods under surveillance
After recording a record number of 24,000 deaths and having seen images of ubiquitous mortuary trucks in the spring, the first American metropolis has become a model of control of the epidemic.
Of the nine affected neighborhoods, six are in Brooklyn, in areas where the Orthodox Jewish community is strongly represented and where the epidemic has resumed thanks to gatherings marking the recent Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The other three are in Queens, including an area very close to John F. Kennedy Airport. These nine neighborhoods have in common that they have seen their positivity rate remain above 3% over the last seven days, despite multiple interventions by the health services to ensure compliance with the wearing of masks, barrier gestures and get people to get tested.
In six of these neighborhoods, the proportion of positive cases in all tests administered is currently over 5.6% and is even skyrocketing to 8.3% in the Borough Park area of Brooklyn. Municipal health officials were bullied there 10 days ago by an Orthodox Jewish activist denouncing the wearing of a mask.
