Buffalo.
quote:
Twelve members of two Buffalo-area families who recently traveled back from Italy are quarantined in their homes as they are being tested for possible coronavirus infections, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said this morning.
Administration officials said six of the dozen family members are symptomatic and are being tested; precisely how ill those individuals are was uncertain Tuesday morning.
Also uncertain is when the state might have the test results finished for the families, though the federal government over the weekend approved a plan to have the state conduct testing for coronavirus. The state is also expanding testing sites to hospitals and other public and private labs. On Sunday, the state's first coronavirus case was revealed less than 12 hours after the woman, a 39-year-old Manhattan health care worker who had recently traveled to Iran, was tested.
The Erie County Health Department confirmed this morning that it is testing individuals in Erie County and following state and federal guidelines. "We will not be commenting on who or how many. There are no confirmed cases in our county at this time,'' said the health agency's spokesperson, Kara Kane.
The health agency later said the test specimens collected in Erie County are being sent to the Wadsworth Center, the state health department's lab in Albany. Local officials said those being tested recently traveled to Northern Italy, where there have a high number of coronavirus cases. A Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracking system shows there are 2,036 confirmed virus cases, and 52 deaths, in Italy.
The specimens from Erie County were driven from Buffalo to Albany during the day Tuesday. Officials in Erie County are planning to address the media in Buffalo sometime Wednesday about the situation.