CORONAVIRUS IN WESTCHESTER: 151 new cases, 13 new deaths; active cases steadily declining

Testing kits are displayed on a table as medical workers test for COViD-19 at Abyssinian Baptist Church, one of 11 churches across the city as well as Nassau County and Westchester that has begun testing for the virus on May 13, 2020 in New York City.
Photo credit Spencer Platt/Getty Images

NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Westchester County Executive George Latimer reported 151 new COVID-19 cases and 13 new deaths on Friday — and said the number of active cases has been steadily declining for the past few days. 

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A total of 31,943 residents have now tested positive for COVID-19, and 1,269 have died, Latimer said. 

“We’ve seen our number of deaths drop from our peak, when we were losing 40 people a night, down to the teens and single digits,” he said. “(But) every death is a human being, is a family member, is a story — it’s not merely a statistic.” 

“And it’s particularly difficult right now, because we can’t have the kind of wakes, or shiva calls, or things that we’re accustomed to as a society, funerals, to say goodbye to our loved ones,” he added. “We hope that when this is behind us, we’ll have an opportunity to show proper respect to all of those we’ve lost.”

As of Friday, the county was tracking 2,711 active cases. That number dropped below 3,000 earlier this week and has been decreasing “by about 100 a day over the last few days,” Latimer noted. 

Westchester has now tested 120,046 people for the virus and is continuing to see “far more negative tests than positive tests,” he said.

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