Dr. Dave Chokshi, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)
Sept. 25, 2020 By Allie Griffin
The city is threatening to shut down nonessential businesses and limit gatherings in neighborhoods with coronavirus clusters if cases continue to rise.
Kew Gardens and Far Rockaway, along with several neighborhoods in Brooklyn, are in danger of a second shutdown if the cases don’t decline by Monday, the Health Department said yesterday.
The city will shutdown nonessential businesses and private schools in those zipcodes if the numbers don’t fall. The city would also ban gatherings of 10 or more people in those areas.
The enforcement measures could come as early as Tuesday, NBC News reported.
They come as cases continue to climb in the cluster areas.
The COVID-19 positivity rate in Kew Gardens reached 3.99 percent Thursday, while Far Rockaway-Edgemere rose to 4.08 percent.
The city is doing a number of enforcement and education efforts to address the growing trends in each hotspot, which also includes Williamsburg, Borough Park, Midwood and Bensonhurst in Brooklyn.
The Health Department will begin regular inspections of all private schools within the troublesome neighborhoods and adjacent ZIP codes on Friday.
The NYPD and Sheriff deputies will also ramp up mask enforcement — which the health department said is “overwhelmingly low” in the cluster areas compared to the rest of the city.
The city will also continue its public education campaign on COVID-19, distribute free masks and hand sanitizer and roll out mobile testing sites.
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6 Comments
If non-essential businesses are closed in the affected zip codes, won’t the residents of those zip codes simply travel to areas where the services are available? I think I would, especially, if I felt that I was not infected with COVID-19. My understanding is that non-symptomatic but infected individuals are the spreaders of the disease. A situation is being created that will most likely spread COVID-19 to other zip codes rather than suppress it in the current areas.
PLEASE START GIVING OUT SUMMONSES TO EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT WEAR A MASK…HIT THEM IN THE THEIR POCKET…
I wish the health department would do inspections of the temples in Forest Hills. Not only haven’t not worn masks or done social distancing since this started, but they gather in groups on the sidewalk leaving law abiding people to go into the street to get away from them. From the amount of people there is probably 100% capacity in these places.
Anti semitism out of control. Meanwhile protestors are roaming all over Brooklyn and Queens yet somehow Jews celebrating a holiday are the culprit???? Why not control the unlawful protests? A double standard at its finest. DeBlasio was demonizing the Hasidic community for large gatherings in April. Those gatherings to honor the dead. Yet somehow unlawful protests and assemblies spring up with regularity and nary a word? Disgraceful.
Yep. That makes about as much sense as Cuomo’ s allowing restaurants in walking distance of N.Y.C.’s border to open for indoor dining and not N.Y.C.
How is he going to stop residents of those neighborhoods from traveling into other neighborhoods. Police barricades????
You need to shut things down as on Monday they will all be meeting for Yom Kippur. Tuesday is too late. Why do you think Israel shut things down this Friday? Unreal