Giving COVID Advice in a Community Where No One Wants to Hear It

In October, Blima Marcus, a nurse practitioner and ultra-Orthodox resident of Borough Park, Brooklyn, received a call from a close friend. The woman’s teenage son was showing COVID-19 symptoms—a headache, fever, and decreased appetite—after being exposed to a positive case of the virus at a local synagogue where he prayed daily.

“She wanted to know if she should get him tested,” said Marcus, 35, who works in palliative care at an oncology center but also serves in the unofficial role of medical consultant within her Orthodox Jewish community. The teenager...