Protesters burn masks in Brooklyn coronavirus hotspot over Cuomo's crackdown on religious gatherings

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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/orthodox-jewish-protesters-borough-park-brooklyn-coronavirus-cuomo-lockdown/

Protesters burn masks in Brooklyn coronavirus hotspot over Cuomo's crackdown on religious gatherings

BY SOPHIE LEWIS
OCTOBER 7, 2020 / 2:33 PM / CBS NEWS

Hundreds of members of the Orthodox Jewish community in several Brooklyn neighborhoods took to the streets overnight on Tuesday to protest New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's new coronavirus restrictions. At a large protest in Borough Park, a crowd started a fire in the street after midnight, burning masks and chanting, "Jewish lives matter."

This week, Cuomo ordered nine New York City neighborhoods to return to lockdown in an attempt to address recent localized spikes in COVID-19 cases, also putting more than a dozen other zones under slightly looser restrictions. The highest restrictions include closing hundreds of schools and all nonessential businesses, banning mass gatherings, limiting restaurants to take out and limiting gatherings at places of worship to ten people.

All nine neighborhoods include a large Orthodox Jewish population — and the lockdown announcement falls in the middle of the holiday Sukkot.

"I have been very close to the Orthodox community for many years. I understand the imposition this is going to place on them," Cuomo said during a press conference. "And I asked for them to work with me to follow these guidelines and that was positively received."

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