For weeks NY Governor Cuomo has insisted that the restrictions he has imposed on Frum neighborhoods are solely based on the science and the data.

On Friday morning, his health commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker publicly contradicted him.

Dr. Zucker admitted that “there is no specific percentage or threshold to determine when an area should be designated as an Orange or Yellow Zone, as it is a nuanced process that takes multiple factors into account and not solely the positivity percentage.”

Translated into plain English, that means that neighborhoods with higher positivity rates than frum neighborhoods do not have the same restrictions imposed upon them by the Governor.

The Red Zone restrictions are no different. Here is what Dr. Zucker said about Governor Cuomo’s red zones:

“An area may be placed in a Red Zone if the following factors are met:

* The area is a defined geographic area (which may or may not align to geopolitical or other common geographic subdivisions, such as county, zip codes, or contiguous neighborhoods . . .

* The Department, in consultation with the local departments of health, finds that it is in the best interest of public health for the area to be placed in Red Zone status.”

What this means is that a Red Zone is whatever Governor Cuomo says it is.

Now that we know that the new restrictions we have had imposed upon us are not driven by data or science we need to ask, what is behind them?

Yeshiva World News has a challenge for Governor Cuomo: Release the data so that we can all see what the current infection rates are. No more 14 day rolling averages. Release the actual numbers each day for each zip code. We will publicly post the data exactly as it is given to us.

We are waiting, Governor. The ball is in your court.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)