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City Health Officials Issue "All Hands On Deck" Plea To Crown Heights Hasidic Community
By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Mar 18, 2020
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Bebeto Matthews/AP/Shutterstock
By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Mar 18, 2020
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City Health Department officials have warned Hasidic medical professionals in Crown Heights that as much as 80 percent of the neighborhood may have already been exposed to COVID-19, multiple sources confirmed to Gothamist.
The warning came during a Sunday night phone call arranged by Alyssa Masor, the Department of Health's liaison to Brooklyn's Orthodox communities. The invite-only discussion included an "all hands on deck" appeal for Hasidic health care workers to raise awareness about the spread of the virus in their community, which officials said was well underway in Crown Heights, according to two people on the call. [UPDATE BELOW]
The conversation was led by Dr. Mary Foote, a senior medical coordinator for communicable disease with the city's health department, as well as Dr. Joel Ackelsberg, a city epidemiologist.
"The level of exposure came as a shock to a lot of people," said a private medical professional on the call, who asked that we withhold her name for fear of inciting professional consequences and community backlash. "I work in the health care industry and I had no idea."
The warnings came two days before 100 people were said to have tested positive for the virus in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of Borough Park and South Williamsburg. The confirmed cases have created a drastic shift in the perceptions of the virus among religious communities, according to community members, leading to widespread shutdowns of synagogues and schools this week.
Health officials did not offer specific data on the number of people in Crown Heights who had been confirmed as infected. Those on the call attributed the lack of detail to the low number of tests that have been conducted. As of Wednesday, just 14,000 people across the state had been tested for COVID-19.
A spokesperson for Mayor Bill de Blasio's office referred comment about the call to the Department of Health, which did not respond to inquiries by press time.
On Tuesday afternoon, the mayor said he was not aware of any highly-concentrated groups of cases in any part of the city. "If we had a cluster, I assure you, we would tell you," he said during a press briefing. "I asked this very day, we do not have any clusters in New York City."
Several health care workers who spoke to Gothamist believe that comment was disingenuous. "It’s a cluster and it’s going to be replicated in other communities," said a Crown Heights nurse on the call. She and her family members had contracted the virus, she said, adding that she was not worried because none of them were in the high-risk categories.
There are currently 1,871 known infections throughout the city, de Blasio told WCBS on Wednesday evening. While stressing that only 20 percent of cases require medical attention, Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot has told New Yorkers they should assume they will be exposed to the virus.
But some health care professionals fear the rates of exposure may be particularly acute in ultra-Orthodox Crown Heights.
"It's a unique community, because we're insular with international connections," the nurse said, pointing to the frequent conventions held in the Chabad Lubavitch world headquarters on Eastern Parkway. "There's no one who didn’t have an interaction with at least ten other someones, at least."
She also criticized the city's outreach to the Hasidic community, noting that officials should have called on rabbis to cancel last week's Purim festivities, a Jewish holiday involving parades and other close contact.
"They're not taking into account the unique demographics here," she said. "That’s on the government and medical professionals who should’ve said, 'Look, this is the situation.'"
Efforts to spread the word in the community have intensified in recent days. A new hotline staffed by members of the Gedaliah Society, a group of Crown Heights medical professionals, urges those in the Hasidic community to call with questions about the virus. Late Tuesday, rabbinic leadership ordered the Chabad headquarters to shut its doors, after videos of several packed weddings and other events inside the venue began attracting scrutiny. The headquarters held a final, densely-packed prayer service on Tuesday night.
"There’s a balance between panic and stupidity, and I don’t think we’ve hit it yet," the nurse said. "Crown Heights is a microcosm of what’s going to happen if we don’t take it seriously across the entire country."
UPDATE: Following publication of this story, a spokesperson for the Department of Health, Stephanie Buhle, confirmed that the 80 percent exposure estimate had come from an online survey conducted by a Crown Heights physician, who asked community members to record their symptoms.
"Over a 3-hour period, more than 300 people self-reported symptoms," Buhle wrote in an email. "More than 80% of those respondents had symptoms that meet the current case definition for 'possible COVID-19.'"
The spokesperson clarified that it was unclear how many of those respondents were infected by the novel coronavirus, noting they could have another respiratory illness, such as the flu.
"COVID-19 is spreading everywhere in New York City, which is why we need all New Yorkers to follow our guidance to avoid group gatherings and to stay inside," the spokesperson added.
Tagged
COVID-19
Crown Heights
coronavirus
Jake Offenhartz
Jake Offenhartz is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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