The city’s Department of Health & Mental Hygiene made an ominous announcement Tuesday night: Several neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens are experiencing an uptick in COVID-19 — including an area it is dubbing “The Ocean Parkway Cluster” — and the rise in cases is “cause for significant concern.”
The department said there are several COVID-19 “signals” in the two boroughs “that are cause for significant concern. Moreover, this situation will require further action if noncompliance with safety precautions is observed.”
“For weeks we have been closely monitoring signals in neighborhoods that have seen growth in COVID-19,” reads a statement. “These are in Williamsburg (2%), Kew Gardens (2.24%), Edgemere-Far Rockaway (3.69%) and a section of Brooklyn including Midwood, Borough Park and Bensonhurst (4.71%).”
The statement adds, “It is now clear that these signals in the south of Brooklyn have coalesced into one cluster we are calling the Ocean Parkway Cluster.”
The department warns residents, “At this point in time, these increases could potentially evolve into more widespread community transmission and spread to other neighborhoods unless action is taken. We are monitoring the situation for the need to take further steps in these areas.
The four areas saw a large increase in cases from the week ending 8/1/2020 to the week ending 9/19/2020, according to Health Department data.
- 3 of 4 areas have tripled in that time (Ocean Parkway, Far Rockaway, and Williamsburg)
- 1 of 4 has doubled in that time period (Kew Gardens)
This increase has led to the four areas above making up 20% of all cases citywide as of 9/19/20, according to the Health Department.
At his daily briefing Wednesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city will take “urgent action” to stop the clusters from becoming larger outbreaks.
“We have a bigger problem on our hands,” de Blasio said. “We’ve got a lot more information in the last 24 hours and the situation, particularly in southern Brooklyn, is causing a lot of concern here.”
“We’re seeing a serious uptick in multiple neighborhoods simultaneously, and it’s something we have to address with a very aggressive public healt effort right away,” the mayor added.
De Blasio said the city is “greatly increasing” its on-the-ground education and enforcement efforts in the neighborhoods.
The city Test and Trace Corps will lead the effort with help from the Sheriff’s Office and NYPD, who will be involved with enforcement.
“We need a lot of cooperation from all the neighborhoods involved, but I want to be very clear this is something that requires urgent action,” de Blasio said.
De Blasio urged residents to wear face coverings and avoid large, indoor gatherings, calling them “the place of greatest concern.”
(AP)
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27 Responses
Given comments here, should anyone be surprised?
but these clusters are only BLM protests…why the outcry?
It’s all so painfully simple: Unless you are in your house (or outdoors AND not around anyone else) wear a mask. If everyone wore masks, the disease would not spread.
Just wear a mask. Wear a mask. WEAR A MASK!
All the geniuses who decided masks in shul isn’t important
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html
Some excerpts from above article, but read the entire article to realize that these tests are giving a lot of false positives:
Some of the nation’s leading public health experts are raising a new concern in the endless debate over coronavirus testing in the United States: The standard tests are diagnosing huge numbers of people who may be carrying relatively insignificant amounts of the virus.
In three sets of testing data that include cycle thresholds, compiled by officials in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada, up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus, a review by The Times found.
Any test with a cycle threshold above 35 is too sensitive, agreed Juliet Morrison, a virologist at the University of California, Riverside. “I’m shocked that people would think that 40 could represent a positive,” she said.
If I had the virus already I don’t need to wear a mask. Leave me alone
Dear ClooJew,
I have a better plan.
Everyone should utilize the “HCQ protocol” (aka “Zelenko protocol”)
Explanation in a nutshell:
Masks will only slow the spread. We’d never get finished with it. Especially since very many people will not take the eventual vaccine.
However, for more than 100 hours(!) i thoroughly investigated the Hydroxy protocol (HCQ+Zinc) and i found a consistent pattern:
Every trial/report that concluded with failure, did NOT follow the simple and easy instructions of the protocol. (the majority of them simply omitted the Zinc. Dopes!)
And EVERY case, trial and report that DID follow the simple steps, ended with positive results.
(I’ve also consulted with numerous doctors. The results are consistent.)
It’s utterly amazing, the forces at play that kept this information from you until now.
But don’t feel too bad. You’re not alone.
It’s astonishing how many doctors still say “Hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work”. And they didn’t include the Zinc.
And/or they prescribed it late-stage, after the first 5 days (or max a week) after onset of symptoms.
(“Tov Sheb’rofim L’gehennom”. Last Mishnah in Kedushin.)
If you spend any time searching the Internet, you too will find the above pattern to be consistent.
Hatzlachah, and a Gmar Chasimah Tovah!
they have changed the name to the yellow star cluster
Dr. Ditchek is making his presence in this matter felt again so I will take this opportunity to post a comment that I wanted to make for a long time.
I have felt for a long time ever since April that Dr. Ditchek was way out of line in his incessant railing against the community re the COVID virus.
The people he was admonishing were and are not his patients and it is and was extremely inappropriate for him to direct his attention in the very manner he did regarding minyonim and all the other issues he was raising.
He should be concerned with his own patients and direct his attention to them and speak and with courtesy and civility and without rancor and strident criticism.
We understand his concern but it is not his place to be the medical monitor of the frum community. It’s enough that we have to deal with the incompetent anti Semitic mayor. Any advice and admonishment should be left to our rabbonim and gedolim.
Please do your fellow community a favor and STOP TESTING YOURSELF for covid!
If you think you may have the virus just stay home until a week after you feel better. Going for testing may promote the closing of shuls for the Yumim Tovim. I’m sure nobody wants to take this on their shoulders.
Besides, there are so many false positives, you won’t even know if your results are accurate. A dead person, as well as many people who left the testing center (due to long lines) before getting tested CAME BACK POSITIVE!!
To all of my fellow brothers and sisters,
Please let’s keep our comments kind in this auspicious time. In terms of mask wearing, perhaps we should be wearing masks due to concerns of Chillul Hashem. However, I’m just a bit confused about their effectiveness. I have been in touch with many of my relatives in the Holy Land. They all admit without argument that you cannot go anywhere in the country without wearing masks. Violators are fined without exception. Masks are being worn everywhere, say my relatives from Mir to Ranana :)! Despite this cases keep rising, and ppl R”l keep dying. My relatives all speak of outbreaks in their schools, shuls, neighborhoods and Yeshivas – all places where EVERYONE is fully masked. Yes cases are escalating in our communities in the US now. But there was very little mask wearing all summer in many heavily congested communities and there was almost no cases reported. I am not here to claim that masks do or don’t work, or to claim I know anything about this topic. Rather I am claiming what I have come to learn over the last little bit. There is so much we don’t know. Don’t take any information at face value. Don’t believe all you hear. Don’t negate all you hear. Don’t bash others who disagree. Don’t denigrate your fellow yidden, society does that too much already. But mostly, Our only trust and hope is in Hashem.
32 cases a week! STOP THE PANIC!
When those of you in a shul w/o social distancing and no masks read the words of unasaneh tokef and ask “ume b’magafah”, then look to your left and right and you may get an answer to your question. Just because some shuls have decided to ignore the virtually unanimous consensus i of public health experts doesn’t mean you have to follow them over the cliff. Alternatively, take an HCQ cocktail with dinner eruv yom kippur (and don’t forget the Zinc) and then join the anti-maskers, daven with kavanah and hope for the best.
” until a week after you feel better.”
The virus can be spread by people who experience no symptoms.
” promote the closing of shuls for the Yumim Tovim. I’m sure nobody wants to take this on their shoulders.”
I would. Pikuach nefesh overrides going to shul. Unless you aren’t orthodox.
“there are so many false positives”
The PCR test can’t produce a false positive.
“Any advice and admonishment should be left to our rabbonim and gedolim.”
Unless the rabbi or gedol is an epidemiologist, they have nothing whatsoever to say on this matter. Rabbinic Judaism for a thousand years, since Rav Sherirah Gaon, has taught that we follow health experts and not rabbinic experts on medical matters. Listen to Dr. Ditchek and people like him, rather than your rabbi, if you are orthodox.
“Hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work”
It doesn’t. Multiple clinical trials have proven that.
Shprintzi, you are so right. It’s not about the mask wearing. We have to use our seichel Hashem gave us and see what works. Hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and zythromax saved many lives, as well as some anti inflammatory drugs. Also the virus unfortunately seems to come in waves, having periods of highs and lows , whether we wear masks or not.
The so called “experts’ who think they have this science down to a pat with 6 ft social distancing and mask wearing haven’t come any closer in solving this issue.
Cloojew, I have a simple answer for you. WEAR A MASK. If its so effective, nothing will happen to u… What do u care if others wear them? You’re good to go..
Rabbi Yisrael Salanter made kiddush and ate in synagogue on Yom Kippur during a cholera epidemic. If he can eat on Y”K, we can stay home from shul.
Sharing is caring. Let’s continue to thin the herd.
Maris Ayin to not wear a mask, even if you have had the virus.
@ lbj Ocean Parkway Cluster is a dreadful term indeed.
Honest truth
The masks are most effective when worn by the person who is infected. The majority of infected people have no symptoms and don’t know they have Covid-19.
Trump 2020.
I could just see it. Nov 4 no more coronavirus.
Charlie literal people who’ve taken hcq with zinc have been healed.
Response to Shprintzi:
With all due respect, your response is a perfect example of people using partial and inaccurate anecdotal information gathered from friends or the internet to counter positions established nearly universally by the epidemic experts. You write that in Israel “all admit without argument that you cannot go anywhere in the country without wearing masks … and masks are being worn everywhere,” yet the virus is rampant, whereas in NY there was almost nothing despite no masks. Hence, you reach the conclusion that despite every medical expert w/o exception stating that masks are the best way to stop the virus spread, there is room to doubt this.
The problem is that info from friends are sometimes wildly inaccurate. Yes, in some areas here in Israel nearly everyone wears masks, but did your friends tell you that in Belz no one ever wears a mask, including the nearly 10,000 people packed together at a wedding in August, or the nearly 10,000 packed together on Rosh Hashana for nearly 10 hours of davening? Did you know that in Meah Shearim almost no one in the street wears a mask, and that is pretty much true for Beis Yisroel as well? Or that no one in Toldos Aharon, Toldos Avraham Yitzchok, Sadigura, or Rachmastrivka wear a mask during packed davening and tishen? Did you also know that the same is true l’havdil among Arabs? Hence, it is not at all surprising to learn that more than 50% of current patients are Chareidim or (l’havdil) Arabs. So yes, lack of masks is a massive reason for the massive spread of the virus.
As for NY and NJ, while no one is sure why the virus almost disappeared there for months, it is now widely suspected that since more than 40% of the population became infected in the first wave, there was a degree of herd immunity that prevented its spread. Indeed, under these conditions, had even 50% of frum people worn masks, there would have been a continued stoppage of the disease. Unfortunately, 95% of frum people stopped wearing masks, davened in packed shuls, and made large chassunas indoors, so that now, in all NY and NJ, the only places where it is spreading again like wildfire (Hashem yishmor) are in the frum areas of BP, Flatbush, CH, Williamsburg, Lakewood, Monsey, Kew Gardens and Five Towns.
So yes, it is actually perfectly clear. Because of utter disregard for wearing masks and social distancing, a mere inconvenience, countless frum people will now suffer bitterly and many of them will chalilah die from this disease in a new wave, and the chilul Hashem will be unbelievable, as the goyim of NY and NJ will now have to suffer new restrictions and coronavirus cases because the frum Yidden decided they were smarter than all the doctors and disregarded the laws in a reckless way, because they “knew” that masks are not really important.
The ones who disregarded the laws and were reckless were the BLM protesters and our stupid leaders who encouraged them.