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In his second coronavirus update of the day, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that there have been 11 new cases in New York - including three in Nassau County - bringing the statewide total to 44.
Here is the breakdown by county:
- Nassau County: 4
- Rockland County: 2
- New York City: 4
- Westchester County: 34
Cuomo said that “as with all confirmed cases, health department detectives are tracking down contacts. Most or all of these new cases are believed to be related to previously confirmed cases, but officials are still looking into it.”
Previous story: Long Island COVID-19 Patient Identified As Hospital Employee
The three new Nassau County coronavirus cases were of women ages 36, 41, and 63, all of whom had connections to the hospital employee
There are currently more than 4,000 New Yorkers under “precautionary quarantine,” including more than 70 in Nassau County and 15 in Suffolk County. Those residents are being monitored. Of those quarantined, one in Nassau County is under “mandatory quarantine.”
Health officials said that 83 people are being monitored for possible coronavirus exposure on Long Island, with six people testing negative. Approximately 26 cases are being monitored in Suffolk and 62 are under surveillance in Nassau.
The governor’s announcement can be seen above.
"I've said every day the number of confirmed cases of novel coronavirus will keep going up, and as we expand our testing capacity we will only see that number continue to rise," Cuomo said. "We want to keep testing and finding more people who are testing positive because that's how you contain the outbreak - find the person who got infected, quarantine them and reduce the infection rate.
"At the same time we want New Yorkers to go about their daily lives including planning vacations and other travel, and this action will allow them to do that at a time when there is still uncertainty about the future geographic impact of coronavirus."
The hospital worker who was hospitalized with COVID-19 had underlying respiratory issues. It is unclear if that was the case in the three new cases.
“The way we’re looking at it now, is that it’s community spread,” New York State Department of Health Commissioner Howard Zucker said. “Whether it deals with a school, or an office, or family, but this is why we have to go and backtrack to see who they’ve had contact with.”
Cuomo reiterated that 80 percent of coronavirus cases will self resolve, and less than 20 percent will require hospitalization.
“I’m not urging calm. I’m urging reality,” the governor said. “I’m urging a factual response as opposed to an emotional response. I’m urging that people understand the information and not the hype. We have more people in this country dying from the flu than we have dying from coronavirus.”
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