For as long as the coronavirus pandemic has stalked New York City, Tatsiana Vazgryna has been looking for work near her home in southern Brooklyn.
After a halting search, the last week brought some hope. With her 9-year-old daughter returning to in-person public school, Ms. Vazgryna thought she would have time to prioritize her job search over child care.
Then, on Sunday, Ms. Vazgryna learned that Mayor Bill de Blasio, worried about an uptick of cases in parts of Brooklyn and Queens, planned to close schools in nine ZIP codes. Her daughter’s elementary school in Bensonhurst would be among those shut, giving Ms. Vazgryna less time to visit stores and restaurants for work.
“You can’t do that with school,” she said.
As positive test rates rose in a number of city neighborhoods, residents of the affected areas faced growing fear over another wave of the virus and uncertainty over officials’ plans to address it.
On Sunday, Mr. de Blasio announced a plan to close all schools and nonessential businesses in nine ZIP codes in Brooklyn and Queens where there had been an uptick, essentially rolling back the city’s cautious reopening.
Then on Monday afternoon, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo effectively pre-empted the mayor’s plan, saying he would keep businesses open in those areas but allow schools to be closed. An hour later, Mr. de Blasio said the matter was unsettled and city officials were still planning to close businesses “until we hear otherwise.”
The back and forth between the governor and the mayor, only the latest instance of a rocky relationship that has marked their tenures, left residents of the neighborhoods in limbo over how exactly their lives may be altered in the coming days.
But even without clarity, those residents were still staggering from a potential shutdown that threatened to reverse the progress that New York City has made in the months since it was a global epicenter of the pandemic.
“Just when we thought we had a little life again, we’re going back to a living hell,” said Shonna Hawes, an event designer who lives in Kew Gardens, Queens.
Across Brooklyn and Queens, people expressed frustration at the disconnect between the governor and the mayor, and at how their lives could be upended.
“Nothing has been consistent,” Susan Chan, 42, said. Hours after the governor’s announcement, she had to rush to her son’s school in Bensonhurst to pick up his books for remote learning.
“I was hoping my kids would get at least two weeks in the building,” she added.
For weeks, New York City’s Health Department has warned that Covid-19 was spreading more quickly in several neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens with large populations of Orthodox Jews where city officials have struggled to persuade people to adhere to public health guidelines.
Some residents complained that for months they had seen their ultra-Orthodox neighbors without face coverings.
“You don’t want to be vindictive, you don’t want to call the police, but what am I to do?” Ms. Hawes said. “It’s very upsetting, because now people are freaking out.”
The announcement that schools would be closing marked the first major setback in officials’ efforts to stem the pandemic in New York, which had seen months of declining or flat transmission rates after a devastating and deadly spring.
With leaders encouraged by weeks of low rates of positive test results, the city took further steps toward reopening last month, finally allowing indoor dining for the first time after months of delay and becoming the first major school district in the United States to bring children back into public schools.
The mayor’s plan, if fully implemented, would ultimately impose new restrictions in 21 of the city’s 146 ZIP codes, beginning on Wednesday.
Areas With New Restrictions
MANHATTAN
11365
Pomonok
Fresh Meadows
Rego Park
11367
11366
Hillcrest
11374
Kew Gardens
Hills
Jamaica Estates
11375
11432
11211
Jamaica Hills
11415
11249
Williamsburg
Kew Gardens
Jamaica
Center
Navy Yard
11205
Clinton Hill
QUEENS
Fort Greene
Weeksville
Crown Heights
11213
BROOKLYN
Kensington
11218
Flatbush
Borough Park
Flatlands
11210
11219
Georgetown
Midwood
11204
11230
Mill Basin
Marine
Park
Ocean Parkway
Bergen Beach
11234
Bensonhurst
Madison
Far Rockaway
Mill Island
11229
Homecrest
11223
11691
Edgemere
Gravesend
Gerritsen Beach
Sheepshead Bay
11235
Manhattan Beach
ATLANTIC OCEAN
ZIP codes with major restrictions
ZIP codes with lesser restrictions
MANHATTAN
11365
Pomonok
Fresh Meadows
Rego Park
11367
11366
Hillcrest
11374
Kew Gardens
Hills
Jamaica Estates
11432
11375
11211
Jamaica Hills
11415
11249
Williamsburg
Kew Gardens
Navy Yard
11205
QUEENS
Clinton Hill
Weeksville
11213
Crown Heights
BROOKLYN
Kensington
Flatbush
11218
Borough Park
11210
Flatlands
11219
Georgetown
11204
11230
Bergen Beach
Marine
Park
Ocean
Parkway
Bensonhurst
Far Rockaway
Mill Island
11229
11223
11691
Edgemere
Homecrest
11234
Gravesend
Gerritsen Beach
11235
Manhattan
Beach
Brighton
Beach
ATLANTIC OCEAN
ZIP codes with major restrictions
ZIP codes with lesser restrictions
MANHATTAN
11365
Pomonok
11366
Rego Park
Hillcrest
11249
11367
11374
11375
11432
Williamsburg
11415
Jamaica
Hills
11211
Kew Gardens
Navy Yard
11205
Clinton Hill
QUEENS
Crown Heights
11213
BROOKLYN
Kensington
Flatbush
11218
11219
11210
11230
Mill Basin
11204
Far
Rockaway
11234
Bensonhurst
Mill Island
11223
11229
11691
Edgemere
Gravesend
11235
Manhattan Beach
ATLANTIC OCEAN
ZIP codes with major restrictions
ZIP codes with lesser restrictions
In nine of them, where positivity rates have been higher than 3 percent, all public and private schools will be required to close as of Tuesday, Mr. Cuomo said.
Those nine ZIP codes include portions of Far Rockaway and Kew Gardens in Queens, and Borough Park, Midwood, Gravesend, Bensonhurst and Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn.
Mr. de Blasio is also seeking to close all nonessential businesses in those areas and to forbid indoor and outdoor dining. In 12 other ZIP codes, Mr. de Blasio is seeking to allow schools to remain open but ban indoor dining and close gyms.
Those ZIP codes include parts of Williamsburg, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Manhattan Beach, Bergen Beach, Kensington and Crown Heights in Brooklyn; and Rego Park, Fresh Meadows, Hillcrest, Jamaica Estates and Forest Hills in Queens.
The state has not yet approved those parts of the mayor’s plan.
In Orthodox communities in the affected ZIP codes, public health officials have said that efforts to boost mask wearing and social distancing have been met with skepticism and defiance.
In Borough Park on Monday, few of the people strolling on the street wore masks, ignoring signs about the virus.
At Moti’s Restaurant on 16th Avenue, the owner, Moti Hoch, said he had noticed more people wearing masks in recent days — a contrast from previous weeks, he said, in which people would make excuses for not wearing them.
Mr. Hoch, who is Jewish, said he thought the mayor should have done more to communicate with religious leaders, like rabbis, earlier. (Mr. Cuomo said he would meet with Orthodox Jewish leaders on Tuesday to discuss how to boost compliance.)
Mr. Hoch also said that he doubted the mayor’s proposed shutdown and patchwork approach, if carried out, would be effective. Nothing would stop people from crossing from one restricted ZIP code to another, he said.
“They’re going to shop someplace else,” Mr. Hoch said. “Someone here who has corona and doesn’t know may go to another neighborhood and screw things up.”
Many of the areas covered under the mayor’s plans have considerable numbers of residents who are not Jewish, and new restrictions could increase tensions between them and Orthodox Jews.
Mark Carter, 60, a maintenance man who lives in Far Rockaway, said there was already some friction between parts of the neighborhood where people were wearing masks and other sections where the majority did not.
Mr. de Blasio has largely avoided singling out the Jewish community in his statements. In a television interview on Monday, he refuted the idea that the rise in cases was being driven by Jewish yeshivas more than other gathering places.
“It is a bigger issue across these nine ZIP codes that really have a wide range, diverse range of New Yorkers in them,” Mr. de Blasio said on CNN.
Those New Yorkers were all similarly concerned about the ripple effects that another shutdown might have on their children’s education, the economy and their livelihoods.
In Midwood, Sumaiia Shermatova, 12, watched her 8-year-old brother play with friends as she waited to pick up supplies from school. Sumaiia, who’s in the seventh grade, said she never got to attend in-person classes herself, and now she’s “stuck at home,” unable to see her friends.
“I just wanted to go to school,” she said. “I didn’t even get a chance.”
To Anisa Roberto, whose 6-year-old daughter attends P.S. 686 in Bensonhurst, the closings felt unfair.
“For so long, numbers were low here and they didn’t get to go to school,” she said.
Ms. Roberto, a nurse from Bay Ridge, is also concerned how the closure is going to affect her work schedule.
When her daughter transitions to full-time remote learning, “I won’t be able to work,” she said.
Business owners who weathered months of uncertainty before a limited reopening this summer were also worried that a potential shutdown would have disastrous consequences.
At Little Bee Nail Salon in Bensonhurst, Jennie Siao, 47, said that she had only been able to keep her store open because of a federal loan. If another lockdown kept customers away, she worried she would have to close for good.
“I was proud of myself that I was able to come back, but I don’t know what to do about my future,” she said. “What am I going to do? Who’s going to pay my bills?”
On the other hand, working in person in a neighborhood with an increasing number of virus cases has also frightened her.
“If I take the risk, I can get the virus,” she said. “If I don’t take the risk, I can lose business.”
Still, Ms. Siao was not surprised by the uptick of cases. Through her salon’s glass window, she has watched as a number of people — not just Orthodox Jews, she said — walked by without face coverings or wearing them improperly.
In Far Rockaway, Latisha Hampton, 46, also said that she would not single out any specific group of people for the uptick.
The mother of four said she recognized the need to flatten the curve again. But she expected the ordeal to be crushing for her family and took issue with anyone whose reckless behavior contributed to it.
“Whoever’s not wearing their mask,” she said, “they’ve got to take it serious.”
Nate Schweber, Juliana Kim and Amanda Rosa contributed reporting.
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