Rising COVID rate lands Forest Hills on NYC’s school closure watchlist
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A masked-up couple crosses the street at 71st Avenue and Austin Street in Forest Hills Tuesday. Eagle photo by Rachel Vick
By David Brand and Rachel Vick
Forest Hills is the latest Queens neighborhood to see a startling spike in COVID-19 rates, a surge that could result in school closures.
New York City added Forest Hills’ 11375 zip code to a watchlist of COVID hotspots where positivity rates have exceeded or approached 3 percent. Four other Central Queens neighborhoods are also on the watch list.
If a zip code’s COVID positivity rate exceeds 3 percent for seven consecutive days, the state will close schools for at least two weeks.
The city and state have already closed school buildings in three Queens zip codes and six South Brooklyn zip codes where COVID positivity rates have surged. Schools closed Tuesday in Kew Gardens (11415), Kew Gardens Hills (11367) and Far Rockaway/Edgemere (11691).
A proposal by Mayor Bill de Blasio would also apply the closures to non-essential businesses and indoor and outdoor dining in the COVID hotspot zip codes, though Gov. Andrew Cuomo has so far declined to approve those plans.
Forest Hills had a COVID positivity rate of 1.95 percent Monday and 1.98 percent rate as of 5 p.m. Tuesday.
An Eagle reporter who counted mask-wearing walkers near the busy corner of 71st Avenue and Austin Street Tuesday afternoon found the vast majority of passersby seemed to adhere to the COVID safety precautions.
From about 3:30 p.m. to 4 p.m., nearly 80 percent of pedestrians —119 of 150 people — wore their masks correctly as they walked by. A sign taped to a post advised residents to wear their masks in multiple language. A few mask shirkers had a slight justification — they were smoking or eating as they passed.
With the community threatened by school, restaurant and business closures, local Community Board 6 leaders have called on de Blasio and Cuomo to coordinate their enforcement plans while establishing more testing sites and dispersing multilingual education materials.
“Queens CB6 and our community members demand better, streamlined communication from City Hall and more resources in our area,” CB6 Chair Alexa Weitzman and District Manager Frank Gulluscio wrote in a letter to state and city leaders.
“Both Rego Park (11374) and Forest Hills (11375) are now on the city’s list of zip codes with some restrictions set to begin today, though we still don’t have a clear understanding of what those roll-backs will be,” they added. “Therefore, we don’t know how to support the many businesses, families, seniors and community members of this district.”
Rego Park’s positivity rate has been above 3 percent for six consecutive days, one short of the benchmark for school closures established by the city and the state. On Monday, it was at 3.47 percent.
Other neighborhoods on the watchlist include Fresh Meadows/Hillcrest (11366), which had a 2.94 percent positivity rate Monday; Hillcrest/Jamaica Estates/Jamaica Hills (11432), which was at 2.42 percent; and Auburndale/Fresh Meadows/Pomonok/Utopia (11365), which was a 2.13 percent.
