‘Cluster Zones’ Were Not Related to Metrics
By: TJVNews.com
Now that former disgraced New York State governor Andrew Cuomo has now fallen from grace in the aftermath of his resignation on allegations of sexual harassment of female employees, it has now been revealed that during his last term in office Cuomo was intentionally targeting Orthodox Jews in the state for persecution.
YWN reported that during the Covid pandemic, Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods throughout the city and state were specifically designated as “red zones” where allegedly Covid infections were higher than average. The governor came down hard on Orthodox Jewish areas of the city by instituting lockdowns, ordering the shuttering of essential businesses, as well as closing schools, synagogues and mikvahs.
In an October 2020 report, community activist Chaskel Bennett told YWN that “the City previously released Covid numbers by Zip Code. When the State created their color-coded zones, that information stopped being shared and the new information now provided was changed to include the entire RedZone in South Brooklyn and not by local zip codes. That makes it more difficult for community leaders to assist in targeting the rising infections in a micro cluster manner. We can offer the State & City a real partnership if they would just work with us, but unfortunately they have chosen an approach that sidelines the very leaders who could help fix this.”
He added that: “I feel and share the pain and anger of the fathers & mother’s who simply want their lives back. Government is failing the people it professes to care about. They need to do way better.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James has released transcripts from interviews with state officials during her investigation into the then-governor, in which NYS health officials said they were confused by Cuomo’s “cluster zones,” according to the YWN report.
“Some areas met the metrics and would be called a cluster zone and others met the metrics and would not be called a zone,” an unnamed official told James’ investigators. “Our staff who worked for hours and hours on these metrics and then nothing would be announced, and it was very unclear as to why… they would get very frustrated.”
YWN has concluded that despite Cuomo’s protestations that he was tethered to scientific data and results, and despite his incessant claims that all decisions he made in terms of Covid safety was indeed predicated on the Covid-19 metrics of different areas, absolutely did target Orthodox Jews. This was evidenced in imposing severe restrictions on the community despite the metrics not necessarily calling for it, according to the YWN report.
There is no doubt that the damage he caused to Orthodox Jewish communities in the city and state will have long term effects and voters will remember this in the future.
