New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio announced Sunday that he plans to re-close schools and non-essential businesses in nine neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Queens, where coronavirus cases registered a sharp increase in the last two weeks.
“Today, unfortunately, is not a day of celebration,” said De Blasio, announcing that he wants to reconfine those neighborhoods as of Wednesday and that awaits the endorsement of the state governor, Andrew Cuomo.
Between April and May, the US city was the epicenter of the pandemic, registering almost 24,000 deaths. However, in the months that followed, he managed to bring the situation under control and lower the infection rate to 1 percent, one of the lowest in the country. In recent weeks, however, the numbers began to climb.
The increase in cases coincides with the High Jewish Holidays, the holiest days of the Jewish calendar, which culminated last Monday with Yom Kippur. Several of the neighborhoods the mayor intends to reconfine, local media reported, are those with large populations of Orthodox Jews. The city is also monitoring eleven additional neighborhoods.
For the governor of the state of New York, Andrew Cuomo, the increase in cases is due “to a lack of compliance “with health protocols, including the use of chinstraps and social distancing.
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