The New York City Health Department has singled out a portion of South Brooklyn as having a high number of coronavirus cases, prompting concern about the potential for another COVID-19 outbreak at a critical period during the pandemic.
In one of the highest testing positivity rates seen in recent months, 4.71% of tests performed in the neighborhoods of Midwood, Borough Park and Bensonhurst have come back positive in recent weeks.
The city's overall positivity rate has hovered around 1% for more than two months.
Health officials are now categorizing the South Brooklyn uptick as "the Ocean Parkway Cluster." The city does not break cases down by religion, but the area has a significant Orthodox Jewish population and officials have previously cited the community for social distancing violations associated with funerals and religious events. Last month, Mayor Bill de Blasio attributed 16 new cases in Borough Park to a large wedding. But the mayor has refrained from explicitly mentioning the Jewish community, after he was criticized for singling them out during a large funeral gathering in Williamsburg.
During his press briefing on Wednesday morning, de Blasio said that the city would be taking "immediate action."
Dr. Mitchell Katz, the head of the public hospital system who grew up in Ocean Parkway, warned of the dire consequences of not taking the proper precautions. He noted that his father had died from covid two nights ago in Israel, which recently issued a second lockdown order amid worsening infection rates.
"In the absence of us doing the right thing we will need to be in a lockdown situation," he said. "We don't want that. We want people to wear masks, we want them to stay apart, to not have any large gatherings."
"There are easier ways for us to go on with our lives," he added.
Asked about the cause for the uptick, Patrick Gallahue, a spokesperson for the Department of Health, said he could not provide further information and that an investigation is still underway.
Several members of the Hasidic community told Gothamist they were worried about the upcoming Yom Kippur holiday. “There are packed services in every Shul every day,” one source said. “Covid is barely an afterthought in these parts.”
Hatzalah, the Jewish ambulance service, earlier this month warned of an uptick in cases. And according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, some Orthodox leaders in Brooklyn urged members of their community not to invite outside visitors for the upcoming high holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.
The ultra-Orthodox community has been hit hard by the virus, with Hasidic news media reporting that some 700 members died in the early weeks of the virus.
Three other neighborhoods were also identified by the city as having large case increases beginning at the end of July: Williamsburg, and two Queens neighborhoods, Kew Gardens and Far Rockway.
Kew Gardens is home to St. John's University. Between September 12th to September 25th, the university reported 7 cases at its Queens campus.
Cases in the Ocean Parkway area, Far Rockaway and Williamsburg have tripled over roughly the last eight weeks.
Altogether, the four neighborhoods comprise 20% of all new cases citywide. The number of new infections rose noticeably in the first half of the month, peaking to 303 on September 14th. It has since begun to decline.
"At this point in time, these increases could potentially evolve into more widespread community transmission and spread to other neighborhoods unless action is taken," the Department of Health wrote in an email Tuesday evening. "We are monitoring the situation for the need to take further steps in these areas."
The alert from the city comes as the city braces for what some experts say could be a resurgence or "second wave" of the virus as schools reopen, more employees go back to work and restaurants prepare to expand with indoor dining at the end of the month. On top of that, the change in seasons and colder weather is expected to bring more people indoors, adding to the risk of aerosol transmission.
On Tuesday, de Blasio spoke about the uptick in the aforementioned neighborhoods and said that the city would launch a targeted outreach effort in those neighborhoods.
Dr. Dave Chokshi, the city's health commissioner, said city officials were blanketing the neighborhoods with robocolls, WhatsApp messages, communicating with houses of worship, and placing ads in local newspapers. It is also distributing masks and sanitizers in those neighborhoods.
"Covid is spreading in some neighborhoods faster and wider than the rest of the city," Chokshi said.
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