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Health Officials Hold Press Conference to Ask Brooklyn Residents to Protect Themselves and Others

Health Officials Hold Press Conference to Ask Brooklyn Residents to Protect Themselves and Others

By Yehudit Garmaise

    Four top New York City health officials held a press conference today in Gravesend Park, on 18th Ave. between 56th and 58th, to ensure that Boro Park residents understand the grave danger the Covid spike can, G-d forbid, bring back to our community.

   Dave Chokshi, M.D., emphasized that he and the other doctors were quite alarmed by the rising rates of Covid in Southern Brooklyn.

   “That is why we are here today,” said Dr. Chokshi, who is the city’s commissioner of the department of health and mental hygiene,  “[We are here] to alert everyone that we need to take additional, immediate action to protect our communities from Covid-19.”

   Theodore Long, MD, Executive Director, NYC Test & Trace Corps, spoke similarly bluntly.

    “I am going to give you a very clear data point,” Dr. Long said with urgency, “where we stand physically today, here on this pavement: the data show that the rate of new cases of coronavirus every day is currently three times higher [than the rest of the city.]”

   “If [these statistics were not extremely concerning], we would not be here today.”

       Dr. Long hearkened back to March and April, when New York City lost tens of thousands of people to Covid: a time that he called “the scariest time of his life.”

   “But we can take many positive steps in the days ahead,” reassured Dr. Long, who reminded New Yorkers to please wear masks, maintain social distance, and cooperate with the NYC Trace & Corps health officials who are gathering data about how to control the spread of the virus.

    “We are testing and tracing people so that we can figure out how we can get them to isolate and not transmit the virus to others,” Dr. Long said. “Also, the data helps us to figure out whom [infected people] might have exposed to the virus, so we can give them help too.”

    Begging the residents of Boro Park to see him as “one of them,” Mitchell Katz, MD, President and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals, emphasized his Brooklyn roots, as he has all week in press conferences.

    “There are markedly higher rates in Southern Brooklyn,” Dr. Katz said emotionally. “I say that as someone who grew up in south Brooklyn: very close to here. My older brother still lives here. This is my community. I went to the synagogue in this community.

    “We want to save lives. Please follow the safety protocols.”


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