In New York, some schools are closing again to prevent another wave of Covid-19

Published on : 06/10/2020 – 05:47

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Nine New York neighborhoods, in Brooklyn and Queens, will have their schools closed from Tuesday to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. The state governor and the city mayor disagree on the issue of shutting down non-essential businesses.

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Monday, October 5, that schools in nine New York City neighborhoods will close as of Tuesday in an attempt to prevent the city from being hit by a second wave of coronavirus, pending a decision on non-essential businesses.

These are neighborhoods in southern Brooklyn and a few areas in eastern and southern Queens, where the rate of coronavirus positive cases has been above the 3% threshold for more than seven days. The measure concerns public schools, but also private ones.

The plan unveiled by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday also called for the temporary closure of all non-essential businesses, including restaurants, which have reopened in New York since June 22. The governor refused to follow him, at least for the time being, pleading for a more targeted approach than postal codes, the division used by the town hall, and asking for additional data to be able to decide.

Bill de Blasio persists and signs

Andrew Cuomo also argued that closing non-essential businesses was not the priority to contain the spread of the virus. “The businesses” in these districts “do not have a significant propagation capacity,” he said. “We are talking about small businesses.”

“Unless there is a contra-order, we will implement our plan on Wednesday” in these nine neighborhoods with the orderly closure of all non-essential businesses, retorted, a little later, Bill de Blasio, Andrew Cuomo’s best enemy, although ‘they are both Democrats.

Two of those neighborhoods have positive case rates above 8% over the past seven days, according to figures released Monday, and like the other four located in Brooklyn, include a strong Orthodox Jewish community. The epidemic resumed there thanks to gatherings for the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hachanah and Yom Kippur. Across New York State, the rate of positive cases remains low at 1.22%.

With AFP

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