New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced this Tuesday a series of restrictions in various areas of the city to try to stop a second wave of coronavirus infections, before a sustained increase in cases in recent weeks.
The measures Cuomo ordered include the closing non-essential businesses, such as restaurants and gyms in certain parts of the boroughs of Queens and the Bronx, and the prohibition of crowds, limited to 10 the number of people that they can enter churches or temples in the so-called “red zones”, where there are outbreaks of the coronavirus.
The restrictions, which will take effect as of this Wednesday -or at the latest Friday- and will be reviewed in 14 days, represent a step back in the reopening of New York, US epicenter of the pandemic in April and May, when it registered more than 700 deaths per day.
Cuomo said that the virus outbreaks in some areas of the city are due to people not respecting the rules of social distancing and the use of masks. “There is no time to be tired” of wearing masks, he told a news conference. “The virus does not wear a chinstrap,” he added.
This Monday, Cuomo had announced that schools in nine New York neighborhoods would be temporarily closed. These public and private institutions are in areas where the rate of positive cases exceeds 3% for more than seven days in a row, and two of the neighborhoods registered rates above 8%.
Large communities of Orthodox Jews live in all of these areas, recently celebrating Rosh Hashanah (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). This community has proven, in both the United States and Israel, to be reluctant to wear masks in this type of ceremony.
Throughout New York State, the positive test rate remains low, at 1.2%. Some 33,000 people have died from the pandemic in New York since March, of which more than 23,800 correspond to the Big Apple.
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