NEW YORK, Jan.4 (Xinhua) – A state laboratory has confirmed the first case in New York state of the variant of the novel coronavirus found in the UK, Governor Andrew Cuomo tweeted on Monday.
“An individual from Saratoga County, New York, tested positive for the strain. (He) had no known travel history,” he wrote.
“He’s a man in his sixties. He was symptomatic, but he’s on the mend and he’s getting better. He hasn’t traveled recently, which suggests (…) community transmission. rather than a trip to the United Kingdom, “the governor then said in a statement.
“If you went to the N. Fox Jewelers store in Saratoga Springs from December 18-24, you should contact us and get tested immediately,” the governor continued, adding that from a public health perspective , it is now a matter of contact tracing, as this new strain is “70% more contagious than the normal strain. So we want to make sure that we are doing everything in our power to conduct an effective contact tracing”.
The test was performed at the Wadsworth Center, the New York State Department of Health laboratory, located in Albany.
The New York State government announced on December 22 that Wadsworth’s lab had started intensive research into the new strain of COVID-19.
Wadsworth and the Department of Health have made agreements with six hospitals in the state to obtain additional samples and continue to organize with other hospitals to do the same, he said.
The governor tweeted Monday that the total hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients topped 8,000, reaching 8,251 in New York state on Sunday, from 7,963 on Saturday.
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