It’s Snowing In Brooklyn & Lots Of Other News

Yes, you read that right– it’s snowing! Coronavirus numbers are also rising, so please stay safe and wear your mask.

According to the Mayor, today’s daily number of people admitted to NYC hospitals for a suspected COVID-19 is 196 patients. The threshold is 200. Today’s number on a seven-day average, 2,738 – “obviously, way too high. We want to get that back under 550.” The city’s 7-day rolling average is 4.81% as of today, Mayor said.

• Restaurants are closing in our borough again. “As temperatures drop, hospitalizations increase, and cases rise, Brooklyners are bracing for a highly unusual Winter season. The pleasures of outdoor dining are soon to be marred by the cold, and according to Governor Cuomo, indoor dining may soon be shut down,” we reported.
• Council Member Brad Lander has been racking up endorsements for his run for Comptroller. Just yesterday, 23 progressive women across the city endorsed him, we wrote here.
• Hanukkah is coming! Do you know where you will order for the celebrations this year? We’ve got you covered!
• The City Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning voted unanimously to approve a residential upzoning that will allow for a 13-floor development with 278 rental apartments, a church, and retail at 312 Coney Island Avenue in Windsor Terrace, we reported.
• Whitney Hu, who was running for City Council in District 38, just ended her run. She will focus all her attention on mutual aid, she said. “I had to ask myself, is this where my energy is best spent in the next eight months?” she said.
• A FedEx driver was shot in the back as he was making deliveries in Brownsville on Monday. Cops released a video of the incident yesterday. As of now, no arrests have been made, and the investigation is ongoing.
• Nearly 5,000 people, most of them without face masks, crammed into Congregation Yetev Lev D’Satmar at 152 Rodney St. in Williamsburg on Monday for the funeral of a former Satmar high court judge, the Post reported. Now, City officials are investigating. According to Mayor Bill de Blasio, “If we see another confirmed situation in which an inappropriate event is happening in that same building, then we’re going to have to move to shut down the building once and for all, which is something no one wants.”
• Have you read this story by Slate on Orthodox Jewish health care workers on giving COVID-19 advice? “The past few months have also been a trying time for Marcus, who is now in the unfortunate position of giving advice that no one wants to hear. She has watched as her neighbors dismiss the virus and publicly defy safety measures intended to contain it. She has fought against the idea that her community has reached ‘herd immunity,’ only to see it gain traction.”
• There’s a COVID-19 outbreak at the Metropolitan Detention Center. “My understanding is that approximately 60 people on that unit have COVID symptoms, and it’s such a large amount of inmates that they’re unable to segregate, those who have symptoms and those who don’t and to properly quarantine people,” attorney James Roth of Stampur & Roth told NY1.
• The City has been offering people hotel rooms to quarantine if they or a family member has COVID-19. But according to Politico, not many people have been making use of those rooms. “Out of 101,929 people infected with Covid-19, tracked by the city’s contact tracers since early June, only 611 have checked into hotels after being referred by tracers, according to data reported by the city, which goes through mid-November… A large majority of New Yorkers who get the coronavirus have instead opted to ride it out at home.”
• Dumbo’s Time Out Market plans to temporarily cease all operations starting Dec. 20 due to a drop in guests amid COVID-19, AMNY wrote.
• What do sewers reveal about the coronavirus? “New York City’s sewers, whose lore has spawned films, children’s books and fantastical tales of alligator infestation, have now seized a role in the pandemic: Scientists are tracking outbreaks by monitoring the smelly, gray effluent that flows through underground pipes in hopes of identifying coronavirus clusters days before they appear through patient testing,” the Times reported.