Metro

National Guard deployed to NY community with nation’s ‘largest cluster’ of coronavirus

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Published March 10, 2020
Updated March 10, 2020, 9:45 p.m. ET

The National Guard will be deployed to enforce a mile-radius coronavirus “containment area” in overwhelmed New Rochelle, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday — as the number of New York cases hit 173, the most of any state in the nation.

“New Rochelle, at this point, is probably the largest cluster of these cases in the United States,” Cuomo said in a press briefing. “And it’s a significant issue for us.”

There are now 108 total cases across Westchester County — three times the city’s total of 36, and more than 60 percent of diagnoses statewide.

At the center of the zone is the Young Israel of New Rochelle synagogue, where Lawrence Garbuz, a lawyer at the heart of the area’s outbreak, worships, officials said.

The National Guard will enforce the mandated closure of “large gathering areas” — including schools and houses of worship — within the perimeter, which will be maintained beginning Thursday and through March 25, said Cuomo.

“We’re also going to use the National Guard in the containment area to deliver food to homes, [and] to help with the cleaning of public spaces,” said Cuomo.

A total of nine public and private schools within the area will be forced to shutter for the two-week period, as well as three schools outside the zone linked to confirmed or suspected corona­virus patients, officials said.

Among them is New Rochelle High School, where two children of New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson are students.

“The terms of the containment zone are quite easy to monitor and enforce because they only concern large gatherings and large institutions,” said Bramson, though he noted the undertaking represents a “very significant logistical challenge” beyond the city’s capabilities.

Local Metro-North stations will maintain scheduled service and civilians will be free to come and go from the containment area, provided they aren’t under existing quarantine orders.

Businesses within the zone, including grocery stores, will be allowed to remain open — though some are already feeling squeezed by the outbreak.

“We lost all of our business with the synagogues and schools because they are shutting down,” said Patrick Vecchio, a worker at Prime Time Cafe, a kosher restaurant within the radius.

Vecchio said the restaurant is still doing a brisk delivery business to customers — many of them quarantined — but that the restaurant itself has almost no walk-in customers.

“This is surreal,” said Vecchio, a 16-year employee of the eatery. “The only thing I’ve seen close to this was like Hurricane Sandy seven years ago.

“I’m hoping there is less and less people testing positive [for the coronavirus] and this eventually will go away,” he added. “How long that will take, I don’t know.”

Meanwhile Tuesday, the number of confirmed cases in New York City jumped to 36 — nearly double the 19 reported Monday.

“You should assume a changing dynamic,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio at a press at Bellevue Hospital.

The city’s confirmed cases now include at least one in each borough, as sources identified an EMS worker diagnosed Monday as a Staten Island resident.

Elsewhere Tuesday, Nassau County on Long Island and Rockland County upstate each saw two more cases, bringing their totals to 19 and six, respectively.

Additional reporting by Julia Marsh, Tina Moore, David Meyer and Joe Marino