Two more people have been confirmed to have the coronavirus in New York City, Mayor de Blasio said Thursday – bringing the total number in the Big Apple to four.
The patients are a man in his 40s and a woman in her 80s, Hizzoner said.
“Neither patient has a connection to travel nor any of the other local individuals diagnosed with COVID-19. Both are currently hospitalized and in the intensive care unit,” he said in a statement.
“City disease detectives are tracing close contacts of both individuals and will ensure they are appropriately isolated and tested immediately,” de Blasio added.
Meanwhile, tests on 25 other people have come back negative, he said Thursday morning on “Morning Joe.”
The other two confirmed cases are Lawrence Garbuz, 50, a midtown lawyer hospitalized in stable condition at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia Medical Center, and a 39-year-old health-care worker who returned from a trip to Iran and is recovering in her Manhattan apartment.
With the latest cases, the total number of people infected with COVID-19 in the state now stands at 13.
On Wednesday, officials revealed that nine people linked to Garbuz, who lives in New Rochelle in Westchester County, tested positive — and some 1,000 people were asked to self-isolate.
They include his wife, two of his children and several neighbors.
“We are going to see more cases like this as community transmission becomes more common. We want New Yorkers to be prepared and vigilant, not alarmed,” de Blasio said in his statement. “We are taking the same decisive steps in every case to shut transmission down: isolate and test each suspected case, trace close contacts, and isolate and test them as well.”
He also urged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “to increase our supply of COVID-19 test kits and expedite the approval of any testing approaches developed by private companies.
“Our single greatest challenge is the lack of fast federal action to increase testing capacity—without that, we cannot beat this epidemic back,” he said.
Coronavirus map: US states with confirmed cases
