New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said it’s “just a matter of time” until the state orders a halt to indoor dining.
A shutdown likely will come “in the next week or two,” de Blasio said Thursday at a news briefing.
On Wednesday, Governor Andrew Cuomo had warned that the entire city could be placed into the state’s orange-zone category of Covid-19 problem areas, which means indoor dining must cease and outdoor dining must be limited to four people per table. Restaurants were closed for more than five months during the initial outbreak, and have been limited to 25% capacity since Sept. 30.
The orange zone would apply to New York City if the state calculation for seven-day average positive tests reaches 3%. The state and the city use different criteria to calculate that number; the city’s average reached 3% on Nov. 18, resulting in the shutdown of in-person school.
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4 Responses
Several European countries have closed bars and restaurants so they can keep their schools open.
Here we do the opposite.
Our priorities are screwed up.
I would like to urge the editorial staff at YWN if there should be any additional closures and lockdowns in place, to fully back them and not criticize at all. Not to even post comments that criticize the enforcements. Only to fully back them and to post videos of Poskim saying the halachic requirements of masks etc. This is not a political story that people could enjoy debating. This is pikuach nefesh big time! You have to understand that the responsibility is yours!
@Stevenn
Lemaisah it really isn’t that poshut. This is not an open and shut poshut sheilah of pikuach nefesh. There are many studies out there saying lockdowns don’t help or work. Furthermore, there’s a soffeik whether you have it and a soffeik whether or not you’ll give it over if you’re careful enough (and one may even have anti bodies). And before you argue that “it’s certainly a sofeik pikuach nefesh,” then according to that logic it should be assur to drive for fear you might chasv’shalom kill someone. The poskim are the ones who paskin whether or not going to an open restaurant (while wearing masks and keeping social distancing, mind you) is HALACHACILLY in the geder of pikuach nefesh or not. Not me, not you, but the poskim. So far, I have yet to see any posseik assur sitting in a restaurant and eating, so I pressume (certainly if you’re wearing masks and the like) that it’s muttar.
And before someone says “DIDN’T YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE!?” Again, I agree that if the poskim tell us that this halachacally is pikuach nefesh, then yes, it’d be assur. But we have to agree that the metzios is very different now than it was back then (B”H). Much less people are dying, many people in the frum community have anti bodies already, and right now it isn’t as wide-spread. Also, the argument “didn’t you see what happened before?” is an emotional argument, not a logical one. Why do I say that? Because I could say that same argument 40 years from now. If the mitzios is different, and the poskim based off of that new metzios aren’t making it assur to be somewhat normal (while being careful for more vulnerable people), then obviously those poskim DON’T think it’s pikuach nefesh and it’d be muttar.
Lock him up (or down)