The first person to test positive for coronavirus in New York is a 39-year-old health-care worker who arrived from Iran with her husband, the second one is an attorney who lives in Westchester County, works in Manhattan, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.
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The number of coronavirus cases in New York state has quadrupled over the last 48 hours to 44, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday.
“The number will continue to go up because it’s mathematics,” Cuomo said at a news briefing. “The more you test, the more you will find.”
Cuomo used Twitter to revise the state’s case count from 33 released earlier Friday to 44.
The state reported 11 cases Wednesday evening, 22 on Thursday, 33 Friday afternoon and 44 Friday evening — a fourfold increase over the previous 48 hours. There are roughly 2,700 people in New York City under ‘precautionary quarantine’ with more than 1,000 others also in voluntary isolation across the state, Cuomo said.
There are 44 people in the state under mandatory quarantine, nine of whom are in New York City, he said. On Thursday, Cuomo said there were two under mandatory quarantine in New York City.
“I’m not urging calm,” he said Friday morning, “I’m urging reality, I’m urging a factual response, not an emotional response.”
All of the new cases trace back to a lawyer from Westchester, who was the second confirmed case in the state, Cuomo said.
The Westchester lawyer, who worked in Manhattan, is recovering at New York Presbyterian Hospital, New York Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said Thursday. The lawyer’s infection was confirmed on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning, Cuomo said his family and a neighbor all contracted the virus. Cuomo announced later that day that the lawyer also passed the virus on to a friend who passed it on to the rest of his family.
As of Friday, COVID-19 has infected more than 233 people in the U.S., killing at least 14, according to Johns Hopkins University.
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Clarification: This story was updated to reflect that state officials revised the coronavirus case count from 33 Friday morning to 44 Friday night.
