Dawn Kissi is frustrated. She lives in Kew Gardens Hills, one of the city's coronavirus hot spots, a neighborhood seeing an alarming spikes in cases.

Now, non-essential businesses will be forced to close again. Restaurants will only be allowed to do take-out and delivery.

And restrictions on gatherings will be imposed.

What You Need To Know

  • Dawn Kissi, who lives in Kew Gardens Hills, said she's seen a lack of mask-wearing compliance in her neighborhood

  • On Monday, the area's positive test rate rose to more than four percent

  • Assemblyman Daniel Rosenthal said the neighborhood's large Jewish community has bigger than average families and the city is tracing many cases to home transmission

Kissi is not surprised. While she always wears her mask outdoors, she said many of her neighbors don't.

"The signs are there. The warnings are everywhere. And something as simple as this mask,” Kissi said, pointing to her mask, “I’m protecting you. And it just kind of puzzles me why people don't want to put it on.”

A few blocks away on Main Street, the vast majority of people shopping Tuesday afternoon were wearing masks.

But Adel Govran, who lives in the area, said that's not always the case. He said on Monday, the same day this area's positive test rate rose to more than four percent, he saw a brazen disregard for social distancing.

"I saw more than 40 people standing together without masks. And I don't know exactly how we're going to survive like this,” said Govran.

State Assemblyman Daniel Rosenthal is concerned, too. For starters, he has a three-week-old baby at home.

He said the city's test and trace corps needs to pinpoint exactly where the outbreak started.

"We believe that part of it is that one our schools have been open since early September. In our area, it's a heavy Jewish community where we are larger than average families. And we've been told by the city a lot of the cases have been from family and home transmission,” said Rosenthal, who represents the area.

While Rosenthal supports closing schools for now, he's concerned about shutting small businesses again.

"We are worried that will be detrimental to them long term,” said Rosenthal.

Assemblywoman Nily Rozic, who represents neighboring Fresh Meadows, is also on alert.

Part of that neighborhood is in the yellow zone, which means COVID-19 cases are increasing, but are still at a manageable level.

Although schools can remain open, for now, Rozic urges her constituents to take the warnings seriously.

"We know what March and April were like. We remember the sirens. We remember all of that. We don't want to go back to that,” said Rozic.

But back in Kew Gardens Hills, the same tough restrictions put in place back in March, will soon be enacted again.