New York City plans to close schools, restaurants and non-essential businesses in nine neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, where Covid-19 cases have been on the rise for two weeks. “I propose to close all non-essential schools and businesses in nine neighborhoods on Wednesday October 7”, New York Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a press briefing Sunday, October 4. He stressed that he was waiting for the approval of State Governor Andrew Cuomo to confirm this decision.
If the measure is approved, it will be the first time since the start of its deconfinement that the first American metropolis (which has become a model of prudence and control of the epidemic after being hard hit in the spring) is forced to take new measures restriction. “New Yorkers have worked hard to bring Covid-19 under control, and we are not making this proposal lightly”, underlined the mayor. “But in this city science guides our decisions, and we do what the facts tell us to do.”, added the elected Democrat, in an implicit criticism of the Trump administration.
Of the nine neighborhoods concerned, six are in Brooklyn, particularly in areas where the Orthodox Jewish community is strongly represented, and three are in Queens, including a neighborhood 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 those nine neighborhoods, the positivity rate is currently over 5.6% and is even skyrocketing to 8.3% in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Eleven other neighborhoods, mostly around the nine most at risk, are also under surveillance, said the mayor. This partial reconfinement project comes as after weeks of controversy, New York has just partially reopened its public schools, on a model alternating face-to-face teaching and online teaching, and reopening its dining rooms at 25% capacity. . The pandemic has already killed more than 24,000 people in the city.
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