The city has dispatched teams to handle a spike in COVID-19 cases in Sunset Park following more than 200 positive cases over the last two weeks in the Brooklyn neighborhood. Mayor Bill de Blasio characterized the situation as a "warning light."
The effort is similar to what de Blasio and the Test & Trace Corps. executed last month when droves of teams were sent to the hard-hit Bronx neighborhood of Tremont, where a 15-minute rapid testing pilot program was available. That service is also available in Sunset Park.
"We have a sign there's something going on that we want to know more about, we want to delve into further," said de Blasio at a news conference on Wednesday morning. "And the way we do that is by getting out into the community deeply, communicating with people at the grassroots, literally knocking on doors, talking to local organizations and leaders with a simple message — everyone needs to get tested. We want to get everyone tested as quickly as possible to see what is going on and if there's something further we need to do."
In his first news briefing as the new commissioner of the city Department of Health, Dr. David Chokshi said 3,300 residents in that neighborhood have been tested. A total of 228 people tested in one of neighborhood sites were positive, with 104 identified as residents of the west Brooklyn community.
"In a way, the ZIP code-wide rate was like the beep of a metal detector that told us where to dig. Now that we're getting deeper, we're finding what we're looking for and able to help the people we've identified. So, we'll turbocharge our activity in the days ahead," said Chokshi, adding that residents within the 11220 ZIP code can expect to see door knocking and robocalls sent to households urging residents to get a test.
But de Blasio couldn't pinpoint the cause of that uptick in the neighborhood that's home to some 38,000 households, mostly Hispanic and Asian. Half the neighborhood earns below $50,000.
"It's not that we have a perfect beat on exactly what's happening yet," said de Blasio. "The idea is to go and do much more testing to see if it either clarifies that that was an aberrant reality or shows us something that we can follow up on more distinctly. So we're going to be out there intensely to get that answer quickly."
Annabel Palma, chief equity officer for the Test & Trace Corp. program, said 80 people have accepted the group's resources, which includes a hotel, free food, personal protective equipment, and help getting prescriptions. Those 80 cases also produced 130 contacts.
"Out of those contacts that they gave us, 82% of those contacts were household contacts, meaning they were individuals who lived under the same roof with the individual that tested positive," said Palma.
The city is now relying on community-based groups such as SCO Family of Services, a health care group, to help spread the word on services available to residents.
Two mobile testing vans will now be in the neighborhood, the first beginning today (and running through next week) at 44th and 6th Avenue from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the second available this weekend at Brooklyn Herald Gospel Center, 809 44th St. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. There are also plans to bring the rapid testing center at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, and the DOH is scouting for brick and mortar testing sites as part of its expansion effort.
The availability of resources was welcome news for Councilmember Carlos Menchaca, but he called out de Blasio for having ignored Sunset Park as a neighborhood vastly impacted by COVID-19. The services, Menchaca said, were sorely needed in March when the pandemic broke.
"What was needed was massive support for our community orgs and leaders, who have the trust of the people and the knowledge to reach them - Instead, the Mayor ignored us as usual, and now that a rapid testing pilot is being carried out, numbers are confirming what we knew," Menchaca wrote on Twitter. "I also stand ready to work with the Mayor if he is serious about helping Sunset Park."
