Washington state and California may be garnering all the headlines, and the lion’s share of COVID-19 cases, but community transmission is now evident from sea to shining sea.
On Friday, New York reported 33 cases of the virus, adding 11 new cases all connected to the Westchester County lawyer who represented the first instance of community spread, according to NBC New York. Four of the people who have been diagnosed with the virus are from New York City, and at least two have been hospitalized in Manhattan intensive care units.
More worryingly for city public health officials might be the report that the two New York City cases had no travel history or link to the Westchester lawyer. In addition, neighboring New Jersey reported two presumptive positive cases, one in a health worker who works in New York City and “splits time between homes there and in New Jersey.”
Forty-four people statewide, including nine in New York City, are under mandatory quarantine order, according to media reports, and 4,000 people are self-quarantining across the state.
Two Westchester schools closed out of an abundance of caution, according to the New York Post, and two Manhattan private schools closed on Friday, ABC 7 reported.
Neighboring Massachusetts now has seven presumptive positive cases. Five presumptive positive cases in the Boston area, including three in Boston, were linked to a meeting of the pharmaceutical company Biogen, in Boston, according to NBC 10 Boston. This is in addition to three other people from elsewhere who attended the meeting and later tested positive for the virus. The company has ordered employees to work from home for the next 2 weeks.
Schools in Wellesley and Plymouth, Massachusetts, also closed on Friday. Two schools in Wellesley were dismissed early following a positive test result in a parent, according to WCVB.com, and all Plymouth schools were closed after a student displayed symptoms following a school trip to northern Italy, Boston 25 News said.
Maryland has declared a public health emergency, according to WTOP, following three Montgomery County residents testing positive for COVID-19. All patients contracted the virus overseas, though their travel histories are not being released, citing “privacy concerns.”
As of now, schools in the county remain open, though school system officials said they are preparing for the possibility of future school closures.
Pennsylvania has also declared a “disaster declaration” to provide more support for coronavirus response, according to WGAL. The state has two presumptive positive cases as of Friday.
Florida declared a state of emergency, with NBC 6 South Florida reporting that nine people with ties to Florida, including four currently in Florida, have tested positive for COVID-19.
And Texas, specifically the Houston area, now has six coronavirus cases, including five among a group of people who traveled to Egypt together, the Texas Tribune reported. That doesn’t include repatriated citizens being held at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.
Finally, Illinois has five COVID-19 cases, with a man in his 20s testing positive after returning from Italy, according to ABC 7 Chicago. Two other patients are a husband, whose wife was also infected, and both are at home in isolation. The first two patients, which made national headlines as the first instance of close contact spread in the U.S., have recovered, according to media reports.
Source: MedicalNewsToday.com
