NY gov declares 1-mile radius coronavirus ‘containment area’ in New Rochelle

Schools, houses of worship and large gathering places in the New York suburb that has the ‘largest cluster’ of coronavirus cases in the country will be shut down as the National Guard is being brought in to help stop the spread of the disease.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Tuesday that a one-mile containment area will be set up in New Rochelle in Westchester County where the main cluster of coronavirus have been reported. 

The area is the epicenter of of the state’s coronavirus outbreak and accounts for more than 100 of New York’s 173 confirmed cases. 

The radius centers around the Temple Young Israel of New Rochelle synagogue that was attended by the Manhattan attorney who has been linked to the outbreak in the area.  

The shutdown, which will begin on Thursday and last for two weeks, will effect all ‘major gathering places’ including schools and places of worship, Cuomo said.  

‘It is a dramatic action, but it is the largest cluster in the country. And this is literally a matter of life and death,’ Cuomo said. 

The announcement about the containment area came as New Jersey reported its first coronavirus death. It is the first fatality in the tri-state area. 

Cuomo said he was calling in the National Guard to the containment area to assist with cleaning public spaces and to deliver food to homes where people are currently self-quarantined.  

Health officials said they are still trying to determine a full list of places that will be forced to close within the containment area. 

The schools that will close include New Rochelle High School, Albert Leonard Middle School and William B. Ward Elementary. 

The closures will not effect smaller businesses and grocery stores, officials said.

Cuomo said people will not be contained and residents are free to come and go with the one-mile radius.  

The state and a private health system, Northwell Health, are also setting up a testing facility in the area. 

New Rochelle is at the center of an outbreak of 108 cases in Westchester County, out of 173 statewide as of Tuesday. 

New York City has 36 cases, while its population is more than 100 times that of New Rochelle.

‘New Rochelle at this point is probably the largest cluster in the U.S. of these cases and it is a significant issue for us,’ Cuomo said. 

‘The numbers have been going up. The numbers continue to go up. The numbers are going up unabated. And we do need a special public health strategy for New Rochelle.’ 

New York Health Commissioner Dr Howard Zucker said officials were moving from a containment strategy to a mitigation strategy.

‘When you’re dealing with mitigation, you have to deal with the issues of social distancing and how people gather together and to try to minimize that.’ 

Cuomo said the decision was one made by Dr Zucker and other public health officials. 

‘It’s not a decision that I’m making. I’m accepting the recommendation of Dr. Zucker. In a situation like this, whether you’re president, mayor, governor, let the experts decide and let the science decide the situation,’ he said. 

Public and private schools in Scarsdale, which is also in Westchester County but outside the containment area, have already been closed until at least March 18 after a staffer tested positive. 

It comes after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Tuesday there will be no widespread school closures for now and insists there won’t be an Italy-style lockdown after 17 new coronavirus cases were confirmed in the city. 

‘We cannot shut down because of undue fear,’ de Blasio told MSNBC’s Morning Joe. 

‘I would advise against these mass closures when we’re keeping this situation relatively contained… ask me in a week, ask me in a month – it might change.’

He is also currently not considering widespread closures to public schools.  

Health officials have previously said school closures in the city would be a last resort.

‘Our schools are running. And we’ve said, even if, God forbid, we found a case in a school, we’re not shutting down all our schools. We’re not even shutting that school down long term,’ de Blasio said.

‘We’ll go in, clean that school, isolate individuals who had that really direct contact, and then get up and running. We’ll have a day where a school is shut to get reset, then get back up and running. Because people’s livelihoods are at stake. Parents need a place for their kids.

‘We can stay safe but still keep our lives going, our economy going. People have to pay the rent, people need money for food etc.’

De Blasio said individual schools might close for a brief period of students or teachers became infected.

The outbreak has resulted in a number of mostly private schools canceling or suspending in person classes. In New York City, Columbia University, Yeshiva University, New York University and Juilliard announced that classes would be canceled or offered online. 

Two bus drivers in Long Island’s Nassau County are among the new cases who have tested positive for coronavirus. Those two drivers are responsible for roughly 80 students on various daily routes.

The positive tests have resulted in several Long Island school closures including in Oyster Bay, Locust Valley, Glen Cove and Westbury.

Gov Cuomo said on Monday the state was implementing a new policy that if student or teacher tested positive, the school would be shut down for at least 24 hours to be assessed and disinfected. 

Meanwhile, de Blasio also said he couldn’t get a coherent answer from the FDA over its ‘unfathomable’ decision not to approve automated testing.

Health officials in the city would be able to test thousands of people a day for coronavirus if the FDA approved automated testing, de Blasio said on Tuesday.

Currently, officials in New York City can only carry out 100 or so coronavirus tests per day.

‘As recently as eight days ago New York City did not have the ability to do their own tests. We finally have that ability but what we still don’t have is approval from the FDA to do automated tests,’ de Blasio said. 

‘If we had the approval from the FDA for automated tests, it would be thousands of tests we could in a single day with results the same day.

‘It’s unfathomable that after this long these tests have not been approved.’

It came as de Blasio confirmed the additional cases in the city and said 258 people have returned negative tests so far.  

About 1,580 people are currently in voluntary quarantine while 34 are under mandatory quarantine.  

The main cluster of cases in the state remains in Westchester where a Manhattan attorney was first struck down with the virus early last week and subsequently infected his family and others. 

The Mayor on Monday urged sick or vulnerable New Yorkers to only use the subway if necessary to avoid spreading coronavirus.

A seven-year-old girl in the Bronx and a the head of New York and New Jersey’s Port Authority Rick Cotton are among the recently confirmed cases. 

The US death toll from the disease is currently at 27 with the majority being from Washington state following an outbreak at a nursing home just outside Seattle.

To cope with the outbreak, Gov Cuomo announced the state would be making its own hand sanitizer after declaring a state of emergency over the weekend.

Speaking about the new sanitizer, Gov Cuomo said it was made up of 75 percent alcohol and will be provided to facilities including schools, the MTA, government run buildings and prisons.

Cuomo said that state currently has the capacity to make 100,000 gallons of the sanitizer per week, adding that it is cheaper for officials to make it instead of buying it on the market.

It is being manufactured by Corcraft, which is the company that relies on prisoners in New York to make products, and is being made by inmates at the Great Meadow correctional facility.

The state-made sanitizer costs about $6 per gallon to produce, according to Cuomo. He said the production stemmed from reports of price gouging on sanitizer.