Bronx man brings coronavirus cases to 13 in New York City

A Bronx man tested positive for coronavirus over the weekend, bringing the total number of cases in the city to 13 and the statewide tally to 105, with the spread forcing the closure of classes at Columbia University and schools in a north suburban district, officials said Sunday.

Out of previously reported cases, Hizzoner called a woman in her 80s “the one we’re most worried about right now,” explaining she was still hospitalized in serious condition.

The mayor also noted the authorities have examined 11 patients of a health care worker who tested positive for the virus. None of the 11, whom the New Jersey man treated at a Brooklyn nursing home, has shown symptoms over the past week — a “good sign,” the mayor said.

Other tests performed in the city yielded 146 negative results and 76 cases are pending, according to de Blasio.

He added that 2,176 people were in voluntary isolation as of Sunday afternoon, down from nearly 2,800 last week. Nineteen people were under mandatory quarantine to prevent the spread of the virus.

While de Blasio emphasized the “good news” that most New Yorkers do not fall under categories most vulnerable to the virus, he urged caution in the weeks ahead.

“We could well be at 100 cases or hundreds of cases over the next two or three weeks,” he said. “Our public health apparatus is already planning on the assumption that we will be at hundreds of cases soon and is ready for that reality.”

De Blasio said the city had no plans to alter its stance on public events but urged people feeling sick to avoid such forums, along with work and the subway. He said people older than 50 with preexisting health problems should stay away from “unnecessary” public activity.

The mayor urged New Yorkers to bike or walk or, if a bus is less crowded than the train, to use that. He also encouraged employers to let workers start their days at staggered hours if possible, in order to make public transportation less crowded.

Businesses with fewer than 100 employees that can prove sales have dropped will be eligible for no-interest loans, Hizzoner said, saying details are forthcoming. Shops with fewer than five workers will be able to get grants to prevent firings.

At schools, 85 extra nurses will be on hand over the course of the week, de Blasio said.

The mayor urged New Yorkers to avoid shaking hands. He bumped elbows with another official to demonstrate an alternative, saying, “This is our new handshake until further notice.”

Meanwhile, Columbia notified students Sunday night that classes would be cancelled Monday and Tuesday while the university shifted to remote lessons for the rest of the week. The decision followed the revelation that a student had been exposed to the coronavirus and was in quarantine. In Scarsdale, officials shuttered all the district’s schools from Monday to March 18 after a middle school faculty member tested positive for the virus.

Eighty-two of state’s cases are in Westchester County, according to Gov. Cuomo.

“Westchester at 82 is the clear issue. That is a warning flag for us,” he said at a privately run laboratory on Long Island. “What happened in Westchester County is a person who is positive was in a very large gathering and people then got infected and then they went to very large gatherings.”

He said the high number of Westchester cases stemmed from a “series of gatherings” at an unnamed temple.

“It spread a little bit, spread a little bit more, spread a little bit more.,” Cuomo explained.

Five people tested positive in Nassau County, two in Rockland County, two in Saratoga County, one in Suffolk County and one in Ulster County, according to the governor.

City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot plugged the city’s free mental health advice hotline, (888) NYC-WELL.

“There may be many New Yorkers who are feeling frightened or sad because of all of this information that’s coming at them,” she said.

De Blasio and Cuomo repeated their calls for the federal government to allow private labs to conduct tests, saying state-run facilities don’t have the capacity to test every case.

“CDC, wake up, let the states test, let private labs test,” the governor said, referring to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Let’s increase as quickly as possible our testing capacity so we identify the positive people, so we can isolate them and we’re successful in our containment.”

The governor was speaking at Northwell Health Imaging at the Center for Advanced Medicine, which he called “one of most sophisticated labs in the United States of America.”

Related Gallery

“CDC has not authorized the use of this lab, which is just outrageous and ludicrous,” Cuomo said, adding that the Long Island lab can conduct automated tests that process 120 samples at a time.

New York Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer echoed the governor’s call in a Sunday letter to the CDC and the federal Food and Drug Administration.

“The current testing capacity is not sufficient to meet New York’s needs, and more must be done immediately,” the Democratic duo declared. “CDC and FDA officials must work in lockstep with New York health officials in order to collectively address this outbreak.”

While arguing “there’s a level of fear here that is not connected to the facts,” Cuomo slammed the federal government’s handling of the virus.

“You’ve caused confusion about your testing capacity,” he said. “The president says one thing; the vice president says something else.”

“We don’t have the testing capacity we need. It’s essential to containment,” he added. “Just do the approval and do it today.”

Still, Cuomo insisted, “The biggest problem we have in this situation is fear, not the virus.”

“The virus we can handle,” he said. “It’s the fear, and the fear is just unwarranted.”

Nationwide, more than 400 people have tested positive for coronavirus, resulting in 19 confirmed deaths.

The country’s top expert on infectious disease said he doesn’t expect the country to need the kind of massive quarantines that China has.

“I don’t imagine that the degree of the draconian nature of what the Chinese did would ever be either feasible, applicable, do-able or whatever you want to call it in the United States,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

“But the idea of social distancing — I mean, obviously, that’s something that will be seriously considered, depending upon where we are in a particular region of the country.”
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-coronavirus-andrew-cuomo-20200308-p7qd2e6ifnfz5ncb34bdirl6vq-story.html