As a Jew in New York (although not in any of the zip codes cited by deBlasio[0]), I'm less skeptical than the author.<p>I don't see this as targeting any religious or ethnic group (look at the population of the zip codes, they are by no means dominated by just one religious/ethnic group). I see it as healthy caution to prevent the heart-rending scale of sickness and death we saw in March and April.<p>The author may not remember the overloaded hospitals, the refrigerated trucks brought in to hold the dead bodies as the morgues filled up, and the pervasive feeling that everything was about to come crashing down. But I do.<p>And I don't want to see that again. Which is why, even while new cases/hospitalizations/deaths[1] came way down and stayed there, the lack of <i>effective</i> treatments and/or vaccines make COVID-19 a serious risk to everyone, especially in a place with the high population density (27,000 persons/sq mi[2]) that NYC has, I continue to practice the "Staying the hell away from everyone else"(tm) maneuver.<p>The metrics in place for determining that action (>3% positive tests for seven consecutive days) should be taken to reduce interactions (in this case, closing <i>non-essential</i> businesses and schools) aren't new, nor are they necessarily inappropriate.<p>The author does make the point that those 3% may be a small number of cases, but given the exponential growth (as we saw earlier this year) of COVID-19 cases, I don't see a problem with erring on the side of caution.<p>I will say that the author makes an excellent point WRT using zip codes as borders:<p>"How can someone say with a straight face that we will be locking down one area and the area across the street is safe and doesn’t need to be shut down? How can anyone seriously make such narrow borders?"<p>That doesn't seem to be a great (at least in NYC) way to divide things up.<p>All that said, while I'd prefer not to see schools and businesses (Cuomo, apparently, agrees about the businesses, see [0]), I'd rather have things closed than returning to the nightmare we had earlier this year.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/04/nyregion/nyc-covid-shutdown-zip-codes.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/04/nyregion/nyc-covid-shutdo...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page" rel="nofollow">https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/planning-level/nyc-population/population-facts.page" rel="nofollow">https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/planning-level/nyc-popula...</a>