Any person who has left New York City and the New York Metro area should self-quarantine for 14 days since the time they left the area to minimize the risk of spreading COVID-19 throughout the country, White House officials announced Tuesday.
“We remain deeply concerned about New York City and the New York metro area,” White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Debbie Birx said. “About 56 percent of all the cases in the United States are coming out of that metro area and 60 percent of all the new cases are coming out of the metro New York area, and 31 percent of the people succumbing to this disease.
“It means, because they still are at the 31 percent mortality compared to the other regions of the country, that we can have a huge impact if we unite together,” Birx said, adding that it is “critical” that everyone is following new presidential guidelines (pdf) put out by the White House Coronavirus Task Force on March 15.
“To everyone who has left New York over the last few days, because of the rate of the number of cases, you may have been exposed before you left New York … Everybody who was in New York should be self-quarantining for the next 14 days to ensure that the virus doesnt spread to others, no matter where they have gone, whether its Florida, North Carolina, or out to far reaches of Long Island.
“We are starting to see new cases across Long Island that suggests people have left the city.
“This will be very critical that those individuals do self-quarantine in their homes over the next 14 days to make sure that they dont pass the virus to others based on the time that they left New York. So if theyre already 4 days out then its just 10 more days.”
Vice President Mike Pence said that everyone in the United States should be heeding the guidelines which recommends to avoid non-essential travel. He called New York City metro area a “high risk area.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, concurred with Birxs assessment and called New Yorks situation “very serious.”
“Its a very serious situation, theyve [New Yorkers have] suffered terribly through no fault of their own,” he said.
“If you look at the statistics, its disturbing, about 1 per 1,000 of these individuals are infected, thats about eight to ten times more than in other areas,” he said, and noted that New Yorkers are “understandably” wanting to leave the city for other areas in the United States.
“When they go to another place—for their own safety, theyve got to be careful, monitor themselves, if they get sick bring it to the attention of a physician, get tested,” Fauci said, and again reiterRead More – Source
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