Following a spike in COVID-19 cases among its members, the Hasidic Jewish community of Tash, in the suburb of Boisbriand north of Montreal, has sought help from public health officials and is now under a 14-day quarantine.
Members of the community travelled to New York earlier this month to celebrate Purim with other Hasidic communities. That state is now the epicentre of the crisis in the United States, with more than 2,000 deaths recorded.
Police, public health officials and security teams from the community are enforcing the quarantine, ordered Sunday by the public health department for the Laurentians region.
Dr. Éric Goyer, the director of public health for the region, said about 15 people who returned from travel have tested positive. Further test results are expected in the coming days.
He said the decision to close Tash, which has roughly 4,000 residents, was perhaps the most difficult of his career — but was done to protect the community itself and the surrounding area from further spread.
“That’s why we take such extraordinary measures,” he said at a news conference Monday.
Goyer said only people working in essential services will be allowed to leave and that arrangements will be made to ensure residents have access to food and medicine. Tash has only a small grocer and butcher.
There are only two roads in and out of Tash, where residents strict religious guidelines and many speak mostly Yiddish.
Goyer said the guidelines for preventing further spread of COVID-19 have been shared in English and the community has translated them into Yiddish.
“It’s quite impressive, the work they do,” Goyer said.
“We want to make sure that we intervene in the most respectful way as possible with their customs.”
Goyer said public health officials worked closely with Tash this summer, when public health was able to contain a measles outbreak.
Isaac Weiss, a community leader, said on Daybreak the situation in the community “is very calm, very stable.”
Weiss said residents in Tash are staying inside, as recommended. His parents, for example, who are over 60, have stayed inside their home for the past two weeks, he said.
“It’s a vibrant community with children wanting to come out to play when it’s spring. It’s almost empty,” he said, noting that synagogues and schools have been closed.
