NEW YORK (WCBS 880) – About 20 percent of the coronavirus cases in New York City right now are connected to people who have traveled out of town recently, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday.
“We have been able to keep the infection level low here but, we are watching very carefully and with great concern the number of travelers start to increase,” de Blasio said at his briefing. “Right now, we think about 20 percent of the COVID-19 cases in this city are associated with people who have traveled.”
Dr. Jay Varma, de Blasio’s senior health adviser, said the 20 percent figure was estimated through interviews about travel history done with newly diagnosed people by the city Test and Trace Corps.
“Now it is very difficult to know with 100 percent certainty that a person who traveled definitely got it at the location that they traveled to, but based on the history that they give and the other exposures that they report, we then try to assign a case to whether they had traveled or not,” Varma said, adding that the rate has been around 20 percent “for the past few weeks.”
There are currently 31 states and territories on the state quarantine list. Anyone traveling from those locations has to fill out a traveler form and quarantine for two weeks, de Blasio said, warning that the Sheriff’s Office is out in force at city checkpoints.
“This is true off someone coming in from outside of New York City. It’s true of a New Yorker who goes to visit family or for any other reason travels to one of the states that’s really having a tough time with COVID-19,” de Blasio said.
De Blasio, who visited a sheriff checkpoint near the Bayonne Bridge on Tuesday, said there have been 3,000 vehicle stops with only two citations issued. He said that the vast majority of drivers are complying. Some 12,000 face coverings have been handed out to drivers.
The mayor said residents shouldn’t travel to states with high COVID infection rates if they don’t have to. If they do, he said they should “follow the rules for the good of everyone.”