Orthodox communities worry as COVID-19 cases rise

Responsible leaders in Orthodox communities throughout the New York area and beyond are urging increased caution as new cases of COVID-19 are being reported in their midst.

Two of the Five Towns — Lawrence and Cedarhurst — had the highest number of new cases in Nassau County.

In Boro Park, Congregation Khal Shaarei Zion Bobov warned that several people in the neighborhood had contracted the coronavirus, with some ending up in an intensive care unit.

Chevra Hatzalah in Brooklyn warned late Tuesday that “now is the time to be extra cautious.”

“There has been enough death and suffering in our community from COVID-19,” it said. “We can C”V see a deadly resurgence.”

In Monsey, Hatzoloh of Rockland County said it had received calls from people reporting COVID-like symptoms and requiring hospitalization.

The Crown Heights Beis Din also issued a strongly-wording warning.

“We are seeing increased cases in selected New York and Long Island locations, related to travel, camps and other risk behaviors,” Rabbi Dr. Aaron Glatt said in a lengthy statement distributed last Thursday. Glatt is Chief of Infectious Diseases and Hospital Epidemiologist at Mount Sinai South Nassau and assistant rabbi of the Young Israel of Woodmere.

In a community alert on Friday, Achiezer, the Five Towns-based community resource center, warned that we “must acknowledge and understand that the spread of active COVID-19 cases within our community is very much real and something we need to be very vigilant of.”

Both Achiezer and Rabbi Dr. Glatt echoed the near unanimous medical concensus that wearing a mask — along with conscientiously practicing social distancing — is a must.

In his regular motzei Shabbat Zoom meeting, attended by 1,000 on Zoom and several hundred on YouTube, Rabbi Dr. Glatt concluded his argument for universal mask use with an Elul-centric spin. As the Yamin Noraim approach, “we’re all looking for an extra zechus,” he said.

“I think it’s a get-out-of-jail card to go up to Hakadosh Baruch Hu on Yamin Noraim and say, ‘I don’t really need to wear a mask. I have antibodies. My doctor said I’m not going to get COVID.

“ ‘But you know what, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, I wore a mask because I know it makes everyone else happy. I made a lot of people happy, Hakadosh Baruch Hu — make me happy.

“ ‘Give me a good blessed year; give me a year of parnassah, give me a year of health, of shalom bayis, of shidduchim, give me a year that will be a great year because I went out of my way to do something that I didn’t want to do — so you, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, please, do something for me that maybe you don’t want to do.’

“What an unbelievable argument that we, every one of us, can bring to Hakadosh Baruch Hu on Rosh Hashana.”

In Crown Heights, another site of new cases, the Beis Din reaffirmed its previous reference to Rabbi Akiva Eiger (Igros Sofrim ch. 30): “I have issued warning after warning that their conduct etc. must be in accordance with the rulings set forth by the doctors, [that one be extremely cautious] and distance oneself from this [danger] as one would distance himself from prohibited food, and that one should not stray from the doctors’ instructions, not even one hairbreadth, as is inferred from the verse, ‘Guard yourself from all that is bad.’

“One who transgresses the doctors’ ruling of how to conduct oneself in this matter is a terrible sinner in the eyes of Hashem, since laws pertaining to the prevention of danger are even more stringent than those regarding outright prohibitions, especially in a situation of potential danger to oneself and others, which can C”V cause a spread of disease in the city, for which the sin is too great to bear.”

The Beis Din also cited the Tzemach Tzedek’s responsa regarding protecting one’s health, including many halachic leniencies to prevent the spread of a plague, “for it is written ‘you should live by them [the mitzvos]’ and not that they [the Mitzvos] be erroneously used as a source of even remote potential (a safek [question] of a safek of) danger.”

The Beis Din instructed people “not to visit Crown Heights for the foreseeable future, unless meeting the medical requirements.”

Hatzoloh of Rockland, Chevra Hatzalah and the Bobover shul all  emphasized that mask-wearing and social distancing are essential.

“The Coordinators and Board of Hatzoloh of Rockland County urges all members of the community to please wear masks while in places that you cannot effectively social distance,” they wrote on Monday.

In a message written in Hebrew, Congregation Khal Shaarei Zion Bobov warned those who do not have antibodies or who are older or have underlying health conditions to maintain social distancing or wear masks where distancing is not possible, practices that have not been common lately in the community.

The notice also mentioned cases of reinfection after several months. Local doctors in Orthodox communities have seen cases of suspected reinfection, causing them to warn that those who were sick in the first wave of cases should not assume that they are safe. Those cases have been milder in their symptoms so far, the doctors have said, in keeping with what would be expected from a typical immune response.

Several Orthodox communities were hit particularly hard by the virus early in the pandemic, with members of some even believing that their communities may have achieved a measure of herd immunity as a result. That may not be the case — and even if it was so, large numbers of people who have not contracted the virus and recovered still remain vulnerable.

“Herd immunity is a relative concept,” said Dr. Gary Slutkin, an epidemiologist who worked with the World Health Organization for over 10 years on AIDS programs in Africa.

While a large percentage of people having immunity to a virus can help reduce transmission in a group, he said, it does not bring the risk to zero for anyone who has not contracted COVID-19.

“You’re still at risk [when you are] around anyone who’s still infectious, that has not changed for you,” Slutkin said. “So if you’re at a gathering and there’s someone who is infectious, nothing has changed for you.”

Among the new cases in Crown Heights, local doctors said, were two of “presumed reinfection.”

“Both had antibodies but upon recent retesting had ‘lost’ their antibodies, and now, after being exposed to COVID, these people became sick again and tested positive,” the doctors, part of the Gedaliah Society, wrote. “These two new cases are so clear in their course as to take reinfection from a probable phenomenon to a reality (albeit difficult to prove as we don’t have initial viral samples to compare).”

In its commumication last erev Shabbos, Achiezer, which reported “a significant uptick in positive cases in the Far Rockaway/Bayswater area,”  listed three things to do “to ensure that this ‘uptick’ doesn’t turn into an actual ‘outbreak’:

“1. Continue to practice social distancing when possible and even when inconvenient or uncomfortable.

“2. Continue to wear a mask whenever at all possible and certainly whenever entering an area where proper social distancing is not possible.

“3. Continue to be VERY aware of your own health. If you or a family member are experiencing any symptoms whatsoever, please DO NOT go to a store, shul or school until consulting with your physician or other medical professional.”

While nearly all of the new cases in Nassau County were not critical, there have been “some patients with serious and persistent symptoms,” Achiezer said, adding:

“If we collectively can save one person from serious illness or worse C”V, then it will all have been worth it.”

On Friday morning, Rabbi Dr. Glatt joined the presidents of four Nassau County colleges in a webinar focused on the challenges facing everyone involved in the reopening of higher educational institutions.

In that forum, hosted by RichnerLive, he again emphasized the wearing of masks. He also referenced both the hot political climate and the difficulty of appealing to young people who may consider themselves somewhat invulnerable.

“We all have to take a deep breath here. This is not a red versus blue issue, this is not a political statement,” he said. “I try to appeal to people’s kinder and nicer instincts.”

“When you’re wearing a mask, you’re wearing it to protect people who can’t protect themselves, someone whose immune system is not working as well as a 20 year old,” he continued.

“If you’re healthy, wear the mask and say, thank G-d I’m healthy. I’m wearing it to protect somebody’s grandmother. I’m wearing it to protect my next door neighbor who survived cancer and doesn’t need to die of COVID.

“I’m hopeful that people are good in general. College age kids, the amount of nice things they do is unbelievable. I think we need to appeal to everybody to do the right thing. Not, oh, you’re bad people, I’m going to punish you, if you do this again you’re going to be thrown out.

“We’re going to have to do this, I’m not saying that’s wrong. But we need to have campaigns saying, I’m wearing a mask because I’m nice’.”

The Rabbinical Council of Bergen County, the first such group to shut down a large Modern Orthodox community back in March, warned of the dangers of unchecked celebrations.

“While such an event, first and foremost, constitutes a threat to the health of those in attendance, the risk to the institutional health of our community created by such an event should not be minimized,” the group wrote. “Indeed, even one such event could easily result in the full closure of an entire yeshiva, or multiple yeshivot across our community.”

“While in shuls this vigilance is still evident, one area where laxity has sometimes set in is at weddings,” the Vaad Harabanim of Baltimore said.

“This upsurge in simcha-related community spread is what’s putting the success of school reopenings at risk,” said Dr. Avi Rosenberg, assistant professor of pathology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. “If it continues at the rate it’s currently going in, I don’t know how we’re going to open schools safely.”

With reporting by JTA