Posted on March 7, 2020 at 8:57 pm by West Sider



A coronavirus rendering. Via CDC.

Two more Upper West Siders tested positive for the coronavirus on Saturday.

The wife of a 51-year-old man who had been diagnosed with the virus on Friday and their 11-year-old daughter have tested positive for the coronavirus, city officials said on Saturday. All three (the man, woman and child) are now under mandatory quarantine.

The woman and child are both “mildly symptomatic,” the mayor’s update said. Most people who get this virus have suffered relatively mild symptoms, though the disease can be much more serious for others. The people who become sickest tend to be older or have preexisting conditions.

City officials have not revealed what building the family lives in, nor have they disclosed the school that the child attends. Asked whether the child’s school had been thoroughly cleaned, City Councilmember Mark Levine wrote to us that he believes so.

“Health Dept’s disease detectives are tracing contacts for the affected families,” he wrote on Twitter. “Dept is not recommending closure of schools, though some privates have done so voluntarily. In general schools w/ possible cases have gotten deep cleaning, which I believe has been done in this case.”

We’ve asked Levine to confirm whether the deep cleaning was indeed completed.

As of Saturday morning, 18 New York City residents were under mandatory quarantine and 2,255 were under voluntary quarantine. Twelve people in the city have tested positive.

The city also said that the virus does not appear to live long in the air. “New York City disease detectives have determined new information about COVID-19. The virus can only transmit when bodily fluid, such as through a sneeze, cough, or spit, is transferred from a person who has the virus, directly into another person. Disease detectives have determined that the virus does not survive for more than two or three minutes in open air.”

People who feel sick should stay home and contact a health care professional.