Forest Hills Sees Uptick In Rate Of Positive Coronavirus Tests

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — Forest Hills is among several New York City neighborhoods with large Orthodox Jewish populations where city health officials are warning of an uptick in the rate of residents testing positive for the coronavirus.

Nearly 2 percent of coronavirus tests were coming back positive in Forest Hills at the end of August, compared to a rate of about 1 percent in surrounding neighborhoods and even lower for the entire city, according to data from the NYC Department of Health.

In select sections of Forest Hills, which a Department of Health spokesperson declined to identify, the proportion of positive tests reached almost 3 percent.

Those areas had a positive test rate of closer to 1 percent in mid-June, according to the data.

Similar increases affected Far Rockaway in Queens and and the Midwood, Williamsburg and Borough Park sections of Brooklyn — all areas that have large Orthodox populations. In some cases, the virus spread within households and from adults to children.

The pattern prompted NYC Health Commissioner Dave A. Chokshi to alert local Orthodox media outlets to what he referred to as "heightened rates" of the virus.

"The neighborhoods experiencing transmission were particularly hard hit in the worst weeks of the pandemic this past spring and we never want to return to those awful days," Chokshi wrote in a letter to the news outlets. "We also must emphasize that these communities’ past experience with COVID-19, does not guarantee immunity from future transmission."

Borough Park, Brooklyn, saw the highest positivity rate of the five neighborhoods, with 5 percent of tests coming back positive toward the end of August, according to the data.

Across the city, the positivity rate was just 0.7 percent at that time.