New York Has Roughly 5% of Coronavirus Cases Worldwide

New York has 16,887 confirmed cases.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo disclosed new statistics on Sunday that indicated that New York State now has roughly 5 percent of coronavirus cases worldwide.

The jump in the number of cases in New York stems from both the rapid growth of the outbreak and significantly increased testing in the state. Health officials emphasized that testing was revealing how quickly the coronavirus has spread.

There were 16,887 cases of the coronavirus in the state as of Sunday night, up 4,627 since Saturday, and at least 150 deaths, according to the latest figures from the city and state. As of Sunday morning, about 13 percent of people in New York State who tested positive for the virus had been hospitalized, Mr. Cuomo said.

He said that 18- to 49-year-olds make up more than half of all cases in the state. Nearly 11,000 cases were in New York City, the city said Sunday night.

• Mr. Cuomo also indicated that he would give New York City 24 hours to come up with a plan to reduce density in public spaces like parks, which he would need to approve.

  “I don’t know what I’m saying that people don’t get,” Mr. Cuomo said, calling some New Yorkers’ behavior “insensitive” and “arrogant.” He suggested that city officials could close some streets to traffic to give residents more outdoor space.

• The governor wants state hospitals to double their capacity. He said the Federal Emergency Management Agency would build four hospitals with 1,000 total beds at the sprawling Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Midtown Manhattan. (President Trump confirmed this in a later news conference and said the federal government would also be sending medical supplies to New York.)

• Mr. Cuomo echoed a call from Mayor Bill de Blasio for the federal government to require the private sector to produce medical equipment. “If I had the power, I would do it in New York,” he said.

• Mr. Cuomo reiterated his support for continued testing for the virus. “We’re still trying to stop the apex,” he said. “I’m not willing to give up the testing.” He also urged the federal government to move quickly to test people for antibodies indicating that they have recovered from the virus, in part to help combat health care worker shortages.

• New York has secured from the federal government trial drugs that it will begin testing on Tuesday, Mr. Cuomo said. They include hydroxychloroquine, Zithromax and chloroquine.

  “The president is optimistic about these drugs,” Mr. Cuomo said. “I’ve spoken with a number of health officials, and there is a good basis to believe that they could work.”

• All elective, noncritical surgeries are canceled as of Wednesday to increase hospital bed capacity in the state by 25 to 30 percent, Mr. Cuomo said.

  Earlier on Sunday, City Councilman Mark Levine, the chairman of the Council’s health committee, said on Twitter that he thought testing was causing more harm because, in part, because it requires staffing and supplies that could otherwise be used while treating seriously ill patients.

Police cases rise.

The police commissioner, Dermot F. Shea, said 98 people in the New York Police Department, including 70 uniformed officers, had tested positive for the coronavirus. Three people have been hospitalized, and one was discharged on Sunday, he said at a news conference on Sunday.

Police officials do not believe the members of the department are contracting the virus through police work, but that officers and civilian workers are contracting it from sick family members, he said. More officers were also getting tested, he added.

“As society contracts this disease, so do we,” he said.

But two police officials said that the confirmed cases were just a fraction of the overall problem. Overall, more than 2,000 police officers and civilian aides have called out sick with flulike symptoms, according to the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss confidential police medical records.

Commissioner Shea would not give specific numbers but said the rate at which officers were calling out sick since Tuesday is approaching double the normal rate. But he said the department had not been hindered in carrying out its duties, including its new role enforcing social distancing at grocery stores, parks and other public places.

“We are not at the point where we’re close to going to 12-hour tours,” he said. “But what we are doing is planning for all eventualities and moving people from units that are less-important right now to be ready for any and all eventualities. So I think we are in a good place still and the planning is literally ongoing hour by hour.”

New Jersey has nearly 2,000 confirmed cases.

New Jersey officials announced 590 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, bringing the statewide total to 1,914, including 20 deaths. For the first time, all 21 counties in New Jersey have reported cases of the virus.

Two additional drive-through testing facilities will open on Monday morning — one at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel and the second at Kean University in Union.

Gov. Philip D. Murphy issued an executive order on Saturday closing nonessential businesses and asking all residents to stay home. “There’s too many people still not paying attention to this,” Mr. Murphy said. “We’ve about had it.”

The state’s health commissioner, Judith Persichilli, said there was a shortage of blood, and she urged donors to make an appointment. “It’s one concrete way we can all roll up our sleeves and help,” she said.

Students must move after a virus-related death.

Hundreds of students and young professionals at a residential building in Upper Manhattan have been ordered to move after a staff member tested positive for the coronavirus and a resident died from the illness.

The International House New York, which offers dormitory-style living with shared bathrooms and lounges, told all residents in its South Building that they must vacate by Friday, sending students, many of them new to the United States and with little means, scrambling to find new housing.

There are between 300 to 500 residents in the South Building, many of whom attend Columbia University. The order came after a staff member tested positive last week for the coronavirus.

Early Sunday, management at the International House, also known as the I-House, announced that a resident with the virus had died, according to an email obtained by The New York Times.

“It is with tremendous sadness that I write to inform you that an I-House resident has passed away from complications from the Covid-19 virus,” the management wrote to residents. “We are sharing this heartbreaking news, which we just learned a few hours ago, because of the need to get this information to our community immediately during the extremely difficult time.”

Management at the International House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Students on Sunday said they were frantically packing their belongings and relying on friends to help find new housing. They said officials at the International House told them that the state’s newly announced moratorium on evictions did not apply because the residents signed a contract stating the International House is not a traditional landlord.

Students also said the International House had disclosed no information about the people who tested positive or whether they had contact with other people.

“I’m so uncertain because there are more people here who have this virus,” said a 26-year-old graduate student at Columbia University who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. “People here are in a difficult economic situation.”

The student was moving on Sunday into an apartment in Manhattan with three friends.

‘It’s getting worse,’ Mayor de Blasio says.

New York City’s health care system is straining under the deluge of coronavirus cases, and it is “getting worse” Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Sunday morning.

“April is going to be worse than March,” the mayor said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And I fear May will be worse than April.”

As of Sunday evening, 10,764 people in New York City had tested positive for the coronavirus, and 99 had died from complications related to it, city officials said. At least 1,800 people are hospitalized, and 450 of those patients are in the ICU.

In New York State, 61,401 people had been tested for the virus as of Sunday morning, including 26,389 in New York City. Of the fatalities in the city linked to the coronavirus as of Sunday morning, none of the patients were younger than 45 years old, and about two-thirds were men, city officials said.

Later, at a news conference, Mr. de Blasio said, “We are now in New York City the epicenter of this crisis in the United States of America.”

“I am not happy to tell you that; you’re not happy to hear it,” he said.

Hours after Mr. Cuomo lashed out at “arrogant” and “insensitive” people who crowded into parks, Mr. de Blasio and Commissioner Shea took a more genteel tone in describing the kind of limited use of open space they hoped to see.

“You can go to the park but only for a limited amount of time,” the mayor said. “Families can stay together but don’t mix with other families.” Mr. de Blasio said the police would break up anything that “looks like the beginning of a gathering.”

At one point, Mr. de Blasio lamented, “There’s no more gatherings. There’s no more events. There’s no more big barbecues. All that is gone for now.”

Mr. de Blasio also warned that while playgrounds will remain open, they aren’t regularly disinfected. Parents must take “full responsibility” for keeping their child healthy and away from other children, the mayor said.

If the rules are not followed this week, the mayor said he would consider closing the playgrounds.

And to help health care professionals get to work, the mayor said the city will issue 10,000 parking permits for them, starting on Monday.

Businesses were overwhelmingly complying with new restrictions meant to curtail the spread of the virus, Mr. de Blasio said. Among some of the changes, restaurant and bars were ordered to close, except for delivery and pickup services. The city has inspected about 13,000 businesses to ensure compliance, Mr. de Blasio said, and only 11 were issued violations.

An inmate at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn tested positive on Saturday for the coronavirus, according to a spokesperson for the federal Bureau of Prisons. It is the first known case involving an inmate in the federal prison system.

The inmate arrived at the jail on Monday, the agency said. Three days later, he complained of chest pains and was taken to an outside hospital and tested for the virus. He returned to the Brooklyn facility the next day and was placed in isolation.

On Saturday, the test came back positive.

Prison workers were told to clean the area that held the inmate while he was at the hospital, but they refused because they lacked protective gear, according to a Bureau of Prisons employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

It was not clear if outside cleaners were brought in to do the job.

The prison agency did not say whether staff members or other inmates would be quarantined, but the employee said that the sick inmate had been held with other inmates during the week and that the agency has since quarantined those inmates.

Workers were told they would be notified if they must isolate themselves, the employee said.

The New York Times spoke with more than a dozen workers in the Bureau of Prisons last week who said the Metropolitan Detention Center and other prisons were ill-prepared for a coronavirus outbreak. The Brooklyn jail, like many others, does not have enough hand sanitizer or soap, according to two Bureau of Prisons employees.

Reporting was contributed by Ashley Southall, Annie Correal, Luis Ferré-Sadurní, Joseph Goldstein, J. David Goodman, Matthew Haag, Danielle Ivory, Jesse McKinley, Azi Paybarah, Brian Rosenthal, Michael Rothfeld, Edgar Sandoval, Tracey Tully, Neil Vigdor and Michael Wilson.