Westchester Has Second Case of Coronavirus

WESTHESTER – A 50-year-old New Rochelle man has been confirmed to have the coronavirus. He commutes to Manhattan for work.

Governor Cuomo said the man, an attorney, did not travel to any of the places that are on the watch list. He did travel to Miami, but that is not a place known to have a cluster of the virus, the governor said.

“We are now going through possible connections to track down possible connections to find people,” said Cuomo. The SAR School in Riverdale, where one his children attends, was closed on Tuesday.

At the direction of the state, Westchester County Health Commissioner Dr. Sherlita Amler has directed that Young Israel of New Rochelle halt all services immediately and for the foreseeable future due to potential COVID-19 exposure connected to the man who tested positive today.

Additionally, congregants of the temple who attended services on February 22, and a funeral and a bat mitzvah at the temple on February 23 must self-quarantine until at the very earliest March 8. Those who do not self-quarantine will be mandated to by the county department of health to do so.

Dr. Amler right now, the county is attempting to obtain specifics of the origin of the illness.

“We’re trying to do this investigative phase to learn who might have been impacted and where this might have come from because right now, I do not have information,” she said.

The first case of coronavirus was a 31-year-old healthcare worker who is positive but she is at home and has not been hospitalized, Cuomo said.

“The real fact that’s relevant is 80 percent of the people who get this virus will self-resolve.

They may not even know they have the virus; it will be like a flu with mild symptoms. He said 20 percent could get ill. The lethality rate estimated by the CDC is 1.4 percent, which is about double the normal flue rate, the governor said.