4 New Cases of Coronavirus in Lower Hudson Valley Confirmed

Update Friday: The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus in New York State doubled.

Update Thursday: 10 confirmed cases of coronavirus are now connected to the Lower Hudson Valley.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo confirmed four more residents from the Lower Hudson Valley tested positive for the potentially fatal strain of the coronavirus.

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Early Tuesday morning, officials in Westchester County announced a man in his 50s tested positive for coronavirus, also known as COVID-19. The New Rochelle man marks the second New Yorker confirmed to have the virus which has killed around 3,000 worldwide, including nine in the United States as of Wednesday morning.

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Gov. Cuomo says it's the first apparent case of person-to-person spread of coronavirus in the tri-state area. Officials reported the man didn't travel to China or any other hotspot for COVID-19. He did travel to Miami last month and takes Metro-North to commute to New York City where he works as an attorney.

On Wednesday, Cuomo said four more from Westchester County tested positive for the coronavirus. The man's 20-year-old son, his 14-year-old daughter, his wife and his neighbor all tested positive for COVID-19.

The 20-year-old attends Yeshiva University. The 14-year-old goes to a school in the Bronx. Both are closed today. The man's neighbor who tested positive for coronavirus drove the 50-year-old to the hospital, according to Cuomo.

"There is no reason to be frightened by these facts. Remember the context. You have to take a step back. There are going to be many, many people who test positive," Cuomo said at a press conference on Wednesday. "By definition, the more you test, the more people you will find who test positive. If you went out and started conducting tests for the flu virus, you would find more people who have the flu virus. Who are walking around and didn't know that they had it. Then you start testing, you're going to see the number go up. We know what this coronavirus is. We've gone through it in China, they're going through it in other countries. We know what it is. It is easily transmitted, but 80% of the people who get the virus will self-resolve. The other 20% may be medically ill and even require hospitalization, in which case we have that capacity. And the lethality rate, according to the CDC, is 1.4 percent, compared to .6 percent for the normal flu."

According to Westchester County Health Commissioner Dr. Sherlita Amler, the man attended services on Feb. 22, at Young Israel of New Rochelle. Officials told the temple to stop services immediately and for the foreseeable future due to potential COVID-19 exposure. Congregants who attended services at the temple on Feb. 22, and a funeral and a bat mitzvah the next day have been told to self-quarantine until at the very earliest March 8.

Those who do not self-quarantine will be mandated by the Westchester County Department of Health to do so, officials say. Over 600 have been told to self-quarantine, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reports.