MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-08-22 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] The Made up Sunset Park emergency
|
brooklynpaper.com
Sunset Park COVID-19 testing plan falls short, locals claim
By Ben Verde
4-5 minutes
Sign up for our COVID-19 newsletter to stay up-to-date on the latest
coronavirus news throughout New York City
Amid a spike in Sunset Park COVID-19 cases, local community leaders are
blasting the city’s testing efforts as “absolutely not enough” — saying
the new testing sites are either too inconveniently located, or too
small to handle the influx of new patients.
“The locations are problematic,” said Cesar Zuniga, the chair of
Community Board 7.
After tests revealed more than 220 new cases in the area during a short
span last week, Mayor Bill de Blasio promised to “saturate” the area
with new efforts — including opening new sites, door-to-door canvassing,
and targeted robocalls.
Much of the new Sunset Park COVID testing capacity has been centered
around the massive manufacturing campus at the waterfront Brooklyn Army
Terminal — which, given the need to cross a perilous stretch of Third
Avenue from all points east, is difficult to reach for both seniors and
those who lack access to a car, argued the community leaders.
“If you’re a senior citizen or somebody who has mobility issues and you
don’t have a car like the majority of the residents in my community,
that might not be such an easy place to get to,” said District Manager
of Community Board 7 Jeremy Laufer.
The city also set up two other locations, both of which the local civic
gurus claimed are problematic — first at Eighth Avenue and 44th Street,
which is technically on the Borough Park side of the avenue, and second
at 44th Street and Sixth Avenue, which can only handle 100 tests per day.
“There is just such limited capacity,” Zuniga told Brooklyn Paper. “It’s
not enough, it’s absolutely not enough.”
Zuniga claimed that locals had waited on line for hours in sweltering
temperatures to get tested at the new locations, and that he witnessed
some older and disabled residents give up and go home — which could
obscure the numbers surrounding the increase in Sunset Park COVID-19 cases.
To make up for the hard to reach testing centers, Zuniga and Laufer say
the city should set up testing sites near the neighborhoods transit
hubs, such as the 36th Street, 59th Street, and 8th Avenue subway
stations, and should utilize large open spaces like the Sunset Park
Recreation Center and the Grand Prospect Hall to increase capacity.
The delays in testing could have been avoided if City Hall had consulted
with community groups on the ground who know the community well,
according to Zuniga, but the mayor’s office took a more cookie-cutter
approach, the community board chair said.
“The city has to be mindful that any kind of outreach, whether it’s
materials or human resources that they’re sending out into the
community, they need to really pay attention and utilize the local
expertise, stakeholders, opinion leaders, and trusted people in the
community,” he said. “We have a community of immigrants that because of
the national climate are totally distrustful of the government. You
can’t just send people who are not familiar with the community or
materials that don’t reflect the languages of the community to try and
do effective outreach.”
During a press briefing Monday, the mayor announced plans for a shuttle
bus that will ferry Sunset Park residents from Sixth Ave and 44th Street
to the Army Terminal, but announced no immediate plans to increase
capacity in the neighborhood. De Blasio also boasted that city contract
tracers had knocked on over 7,300 doors in the neighborhood so far, and
encouraged all Sunset Park residents to seek out testing if they had not
yet done so.
The civic leaders say the lacking response to the uptick in Sunset Park
COVID-19 cases is just the latest example of their neighborhood being
overlooked by City Hall — only this time there are lives on the line.
“The city has for decades treated us less,” said Zuniga. “Enough is
enough, we’re talking about the lives of people, not just being
inconvenienced because of an unfinished park.”
For more information on how and where to be tested, visit the city’s
COVID-19 information portal online here.
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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