Three states added to New York's travel quarantine list; hot spots still an issue

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Tuesday that Ohio, Michigan and Virginia were added to the list of states and territories with high levels of COVID-19 infection and from which travelers must quarantine for 14 days upon arrival here.

No places were removed from the list, which numbers more than 30 states and territories.

More schools on Long Island responded to new cases, while New York City schools reported a "really encouraging" result from recent testing, New York City Mayor de Blasio said Tuesday.

The positivity level from tests completed Monday across all of New York was measured at 1.2% outside of the "micro-clusters" the state is targeting, but rose to 4.13% in about 20 "hot spots" that the state is targeting in Brooklyn and Queens, along with Rockland and Orange counties.

The "red zone" level for neighborhoods with the most cases was up from the 3.7% the day before. Those areas are home to 2.8% of the state's population, yet had 12.3% of all positive cases reported Monday to the state, Cuomo said.

"Our numbers overall continue to remain steady, despite the micro-clusters that have popped up in certain pockets of the state. Our strategy is to continue to identify these clusters if and when they pop up, get even more refined in our targeting and attack them as needed," Cuomo said.

Eleven state residents died of coronavirus-related causes on Monday, and 923 people were hospitalized with the virus — an increase of 45 people from the previous day.

States/regions in red are included on New York's travel advisory list as of Oct. 27, 2020. Guam and Puerto Rico, not pictured, are also on the list.

The positivity level for new confirmed virus cases was 1.1% on Long Island and 1.3% in New York City. The number was 101 in Nassau County, 68 in Suffolk County and 545 in New York City.

State Liquor Authority agents and State Police inspected 470 establishments on Monday and issued summonses to three of them — all in Nassau County — for violating state laws on mask-wearing and social distancing.

New York City found only one positive case of COVID-19 in public schools from random tests conducted on 1,751 people, including students and staff, at 56 schools.

The random tests began last Friday, de Blasio said Tuesday morning at his daily news conference, and the schools started to reopen last month for in-person classes.

"That’s really, really encouraging, and it says how important it is to constantly keep a lookout, and constantly focus on testing," de Blasio said.

As part of a deal with the city teachers’ labor union, de Blasio agreed to a randomized, monthly testing regimen, with as many as 20% of adults and students in each building to be tested and shutdown plans dependent on coronavirus infection rates.

Also Tuesday, de Blasio said that by the end of this week, the city could know whether the restrictions imposed late last week on coronavirus hot spots — limitations on gatherings, closure of businesses and schools, in parts of Brooklyn and Queens — would last two weeks, the minimum period, or longer.

He said the city has begun to see a "leveling off" of infections, although he didn’t give specific numbers.

On Long Island, an additional person at MacArthur High School in Levittown tested positive, Superintendent Tonie McDonald said in an email Tuesday to families. This case marked four at the high school in one week, according to notices from the district.

The district also reported a positive case at Gardiners Avenue Elementary School in Levittown. The district did not say if it was a student or staff member. The school remained open.

A student at Guggenheim Elementary School in Port Washington tested positive, Superintendent Michael Hynes said Tuesday. That child’s classmates and teachers have been instructed to self-quarantine for 14 days, Hynes said.

There was a positive case of a student at James A. Dever Elementary School in Valley Stream last week, according to a notice from Superintendent Constance D. Evelyn. The Valley Stream 13 district ordered students and teachers from that child’s classroom to follow a remote schedule on Oct. 7.

Some students at the Maud S. Sherwood Elementary School in the Islip School District have been asked to quarantine, as per Suffolk County Department of Health protocols, after a student at the school tested positive, Superintendent Ellen Semel said in a note to parents. The school had been closed Monday for Columbus Day.

The state’s COVID-19 Report Card, the information dashboard that details information on infections in school districts across the state, recently added a breakdown-by-regions option that includes Long Island. The dashboard can be searched to find a school or district and learn the number of cases and other information, such as whether those infected are students or staffers.

The state launched the site in early September to provide the public with more transparency about the level of virus in schools.

Northwell Health on Tuesday said it had 132 COVID-19 patients at the 19 hospitals it owns and operates, up from 104 on Oct. 1.