ALBANY, N.Y. – Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Tuesday morning a second confirmed case of coronavirus in New York, a man in his s in Westchester County, just outside of New York City, suggesting that it was spreading in communities with no known connection to hot spots for the disease.
The patient, whose test was confirmed overnight, is an attorney who works in Manhattan and lives in New Rochelle. He had no direct connection with any known center of the contagion, which was first identified in China in late December and has since spread around the world . He had recently traveled to Miami.
On Sunday, officials announced the state’s first case, a 50 – year-old woman in Manhattan, a health care worker who had been visiting Iran, one of the epicenters of the virus’s rapid worldwide spread.
Governor Cuomo said the news of the second New York patient should not be a cause for alarm, reiterating that health officials had expected that the disease would be found in multiple locations around the state and would be likely to spread.
“Yes, people are going to get infected,” the governor said, in an interview on Long Island News Radio, adding that “ percent self-resolve, ”referring to the estimated recovery rate for mild or asymptomatic cases.
Mr. Cuomo said that the new patient had gone to Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville, NY, Before being moved to a hospital in the city. He had an underlying respiratory illness. Westchester County officials said they would offer an updated briefing later on Tuesday.
The governor, a Democrat, said the state was also monitoring two families in the Buffalo region who had recently traveled to Italy, one the centers of Europe’s outbreaks.
“The real issue is how many people will get seriously ill,” Mr. Cuomo said. “How many people, God forbid, could lose their lives.”
He added that the State University system was deciding whether to ask students abroad to return home. “We’re seeing what we anticipated,” Mr. Cuomo said in a briefing alongside legislative leaders in the State Capitol.
Also on Tuesday, two schools in the New York City area were closed as a “precautionary measure” – the SAR Academy and SAR High School in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx and Westchester Day School in Mamaroneck, NY
In New York City, the SAR school administrators sent an email to parents and faculty saying it was closing on Tuesday for “precautionary measures.”
Mr. Cuomo said during a news conference on Tuesday that one of the Westchester patient’s children attended SAR.
The school, which describes itself as a Modern Orthodox Jewish day school, canceled classes because of a “suspected case of coronavirus, ”according to the email, but urged parents and staff to remain calm and follow advised preventive measures.
Representatives for SAR declined to comment further, referring questions to the State Department of Health.
The Westchester Day School, a private Jewish day school, closed over an “abundance of caution,” said Rachel Goldman, the school’s executive director.
Ms. Goldman said that the school itself did not have any reason to believe that any of its students, faculty or staff had coronavirus, but that it had opted to close when it learned that a person in one of the school’s feeder communities was suspected of contracting the virus.
That person, Ms. Goldman said, did not have any children who attended the school.
Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Michael Gold contributed reporting.
Updated March 2, 
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