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1,000 Quarantined after New York Family's COVID-19 Diagnosis

Associated Press

   NEW YORK - Health officials seeking to prevent the spread of COVID-19
   in New York state focused Wednesday on a suburban community where four
   members of the same family and a neighbor have been diagnosed with the
   virus, ordering new testing and putting about 1,000 people in
   self-quarantine.

   Gov. Andrew Cuomo detailed the procedures after meeting with local
   officials in Westchester County, north of New York City, where test
   results came back positive for the wife, two children and neighbor of a
   lawyer hospitalized with the disease. The new results brought the
   number of confirmed cases in the state to six.

   Cuomo said people who've come into contact with them will be tested and
   should sequester themselves in their homes. They include eight people
   who worked with the lawyer and his wife at their law firm and hospital
   workers who treated him, as well as the neighbor's children.

   "Whenever you find a case, it is about containment and doing the best
   you can to keep the circle as tight as possible," Cuomo said.

   The 50-year-old lawyer, who commuted by train from New Rochelle to work
   at a small Manhattan law firm, has an underlying respiratory illness
   that potentially put him in more danger from the disease, officials
   said. He is being treated in the intensive care unit of a Manhattan
   hospital.

   Cuomo said the lawyer had no known travel history to countries where
   the outbreak of the new coronavirus has been sustained. State and city
   officials said the man had done some other traveling recently,
   including an early February trip to Miami.

   The lawyer's wife and their 14-year-old daughter were asymptomatic, New
   York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said. The 20-year-old son had some
   symptoms but is getting better, de Blasio said. All three are
   quarantined at their home. The neighbor, who had driven the lawyer to
   get medical attention when he was experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, is
   also under self-quarantine at home.

   Yeshiva University, where the 20-year-old is a student, canceled
   classes at one of its Manhattan campuses through at least Friday. De
   Blasio said two people he had close contact with - a roommate and a
   friend - were being tested. Yeshiva University's three other campuses
   are unaffected. The school has an enrollment of about 6,000 students,
   including about 2,700 undergraduate students.

   The Bronx school that the 14-year-old attends will remain closed into
   next week after the lawyer's positive test was announced Tuesday.
   Services were canceled at the synagogue the family attended, and other
   institutions were closed.

   Westchester County health officials on Tuesday directed the family's
   synagogue, Young Israel of New Rochelle, to halt services immediately.
   Congregants who attended Feb. 22 services as well as a funeral and a
   bat mitzvah on Feb. 23 were directed to quarantine themselves at least
   through Sunday.

   County officials said they will mandate quarantines for those who do
   not comply.

   Young Israel Rabbi Reuven Fink said the lawyer is "quite ill" and asked
   for prayers for him and his family. He told congregants that following
   the quarantine order is "a sacred obligation that we all must take very
   seriously."

   "This is a very emotionally trying time for us all," Fink said in a
   statement posted to the synagogue's Facebook page. "When we first heard
   of the Coronavirus it seemed so remote. It has now come not only to our
   doorstep, but has pierced our lives."

   In another development, Cuomo said state-run universities are recalling
   about 300 study-abroad students and faculty from China, Italy, Japan,
   Iran and South Korea, places where the numbers of coronavirus cases
   have been growing. Cuomo said they will be flown back to the U.S. on a
   charter flight and quarantined for 14 days.

   De Blasio said public school trips to those countries have been
   canceled and officials are urging cancellation of all study abroad
   programs, including those where students from other countries come to
   the city to live with host families. He said there's been no noticeable
   change in city public school attendance.

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