a state of emergency on Saturday as the number of coronavirus cases in New York rose to 76, including a driver who apparently worked for Uber in Queens and two unexplained positive tests of patients hundreds of miles to the north.
Moving on multiple fronts to curb the spread of the virus, the governor said the state of emergency would allow New York’s government to respond faster by lifting regulations.
The governor’s announcement came as concerns about the outbreak grew in New York City, which has 11 confirmed cases, up from five that were disclosed as of Friday. The epicenter in New York State continues to be just north of the city, in Westchester County, where there are 57 cases in total.
after a New Rochelle resident, a 50-year-old lawyer, was confirmed as New York’s second coronavirus patient.New York City officials have asked the federal government to send more diagnostic kits for the coronavirus, saying in a letter on Friday that the city’s limited capacity to test had “impeded our ability to beat back this epidemic.”
On Saturday, Mr. Cuomo did not say how many New Yorkers were now isolating themselves at home over fears they might have been exposed to the virus. But as of Friday, New York officials said they had asked about 4,000 people in the state to self-quarantine.
About 2,700 of that quarantined group were in New York City, and most of them had recently returned from five countries where the outbreak has been most severe: China, Iran, Italy, Japan and South Korea.
In his remarks on Saturday, Mr. Cuomo said the state was aggressively testing as many people as possible. “We want to find positives,” the governor said, adding that while some people might be disconcerted by the rising number of patients, it showed that the solid medical detective work was underway. “We say, ‘That’s good news, that we know who the people are.”
As of Saturday afternoon, the coronavirus outbreak had sickened more than 105,400 people, killed over 3,500 and been detected in at least 92 countries.
In the United States, more than 350 cases of the virus had been confirmed, and at least 19 people had died, according to a New York Times database.
Jesse McKinley reported from Albany, and Edgar Sandoval from New York. Michael Gold and Tracey Tully contributed reporting from New York.
