4 States Added To New York Coronavirus Quarantine List

NEW YORK — Think twice about traveling to the Empire State if you’ve recently been lounging on a Delaware beach, picking up Maryland crabs straight from the source, visiting the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame or going home on West Virginia’s country roads.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday that Delaware, Maryland, Ohio and West Virginia all have coronavirus infection rates that put into onto the state’s quarantine list. There are now 35 “high-risk” states on the list.

Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands have been taken off the list.

For its part, New York’s infection rate has stayed under 1 percent for 32 days, Cuomo said. It stood at 0.96 percent as of Tuesday, he said.

“The infection rate is a pure function of what New Yorkers are doing,” he said.

Cuomo said infections from out-of-state visitors are a cause for concern.

So did Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday. He reminded New Yorkers who traveled to a high-risk state to follow the state’s mandatory 14-day quarantine.

“This is so important to keeping us safe,” he said.

The city will add to its coronavirus checkpoint program, de Blasio said. City sheriff’s deputies will start pulling over buses from high-risk states and handing out health forms for travelers to fill out, he said.

Cuomo, during a wide-ranging news conference, chided New York City for relying on the sheriff’s office for compliance. He said the office is too small to conduct the necessary number of compliance checks to reopen indoor dining in the city.

It’s a sentiment Cuomo expressed last week over the much-debated return to indoor dining in the city — it’ll come back if city officials enforce coronavirus safety rules.

“I would need additional enforcement capacity from local governments,” he said Tuesday.