The number of cases of coronavirus doubled in New York since Wednesday, increasing to 22 known infections.
The infections are in both New York City and nearby Westchester County. In the city, officials on Thursday announced two more cases, and eight more infections were announced in Westchester County. One person tested positive in Nassau County.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the two new cases were examples of community spread, meaning neither of the patients recently traveled or had known connections to other people infected with the contagion.
“We are going to see more cases like this as community transmission becomes more common. We want New Yorkers to be prepared and vigilant, not alarmed,” de Blasio said. Both of the new patients, a man in his 40s and a woman in her 80s, are being quarantined.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said officials expected to see more cases and “are trying to contain as much as possible the spread of each case we find.”
The surge in infections comes amid an increase in testing across the state. In neighboring New Jersey, a 32-year-old man tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, although officials are awaiting formal confirmation of the infection from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Cases of the illness in the United States have grown in recent days. As of Thursday afternoon, there were 162 confirmed cases and 11 deaths, which happened in Washington state and California.
Researchers in China published a preliminary study that there are at least two different strains of the COVID-19 virus causing illnesses there, one more aggressive than the other. Globally, almost 97,000 have been infected, and at least 3,305 have died.
