COURIER L 12 IFE, AUGUST 21-27, 2020
IT’S ‘NOT ENOUGH’
Locals blast city’s S’ Park testing plan
BY BEN VERDE
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 infl ux 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 diffi cult 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 — fi rst 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 offi ce 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
The mobile testing site in Sunset Park.
Michael Appleton/Mayor’s Offi ce
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 refl ect the languages
of the community to try and do
effective outreach.”
During a press briefi ng on Aug. 17,
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 unfi nished park.”
On Aug. 19, the mayor announced a
similar uptick of coronavirus cases in
neighboring Borough Park, which saw
16 new infections the week before.
De Blasio said the small outbreak
was connected to a large wedding that
recently took place in the neighborhood,
and that locals are encouraged to get
tested and wear a face mask at all times
to contain the spread of the virus.
Despite the upticks, the city’s coronavirus
indicators were startlingly low on
Aug. 19, with just 0.24 percent of tests coming
back positive — the lowest citywide
since the start of the pandemic in March
when positivity rates reached 70 percent.
“This is striking,” the mayor said.
“This should be a clarion call to all of
us. The more we can do to beat back this
virus, the more we can do to bring back
this city.”