By Benyamin Davidsons

Orange County experienced an uptick in Covid-19 cases in early October. The positive test rate in one ultra-Orthodox Jewish village in the area rose to as high as 34 percent. In mid-October, the suburban area was named a ‘hotspot’ and restricted with state-imposed lockdowns. As reported by the NY Times, now, some two weeks later, the rate of infection for Orange County has dropped down to 2 percent, leading to eased restrictions in the area.

Rather than celebrating the good news, local health commissioner, Dr. Irina Gelman, says she’s not sure the fallout can be accurate. She suggested that the amount of testing done in the area may have declined leading to the inaccurate indication of a lower infection rate. Dr. Gelman said that some people did not agree to be tested, despite reporting symptoms or exposure to the virus, and this may be obscuring the true rate of Coronavirus infection.

The blame is being placed on members of the ultra-Orthodox community. After several months of relative respite from the novel virus, there was a jump in cases in Orange County, in Brooklyn, some parts of Queens and other communities with large populations of ultra-Orthodox Jewish residents. Fearing a full-blown second wave, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo set restrictions on the “hot zones” including the closure of nonessential business, schools and limited occupancy at houses of worship. As per the Times, in mid-October, doctors from Orange County called the health department. “Some patients are refusing testing because they do not want D.O.H. bothering them,” one doctor said in a message for the county health commissioner. Another caller to a state complaint hotline said in a message, “I would also like to report that there is a widespread effort from the community’s leadership to discourage Covid testing.”

The Jewish Ultra-Orthodox community has denied any efforts to reduce testing. “Always in everything, ‘It’s the Jews’ fault,’ they are trying to pin everything on us,” said Moshe Brach, a volunteer emergency medical technician with the Hatzolah ambulance service, and an ultra-Orthodox liaison for the Orange Regional Medical Center in Middletown, N.Y.

Gov. Cuomo defended the decision to ease lockdowns in the named areas. His office says that they also utilized data regarding the number of hospitalizations and the testing volume, and consulted with the local health department to make the adjustment.

Still, drastic drops in the positivity rate are unusual, says Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “If public health measures are seen as punitive,” she said, “you will drive cases underground.”