THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. ** Wednesday, March 11, 2020 |A10A
nosy, she said. Where were
you? Did you share a ciga-
rette? Did you kiss? How long
did the meeting last? Who else
was there? Did you have cof-
fee? Were you coughing?
Each answer creates a pic-
ture of how to rank the risk of
a new case. If a person is too
ill to interview, the detectives
speak with a close family
member or friend.
Those who have tested pos-
itive for the virus or are at the
highest risk for testing posi-
tive for the virus, said Dr. Am-
ler, are under a mandatory, en-
forceable quarantine. These
people are in regular contact
with health officials, who will
drop by a home to ensure that
a quarantine is maintained.
When there are hundreds of
people in a voluntary quaran-
tine situation, the process
works on a kind of honor sys-
tem. Dr. Amler said that an ad-
ditional task for her disease de-
tectives is to encourage people
and educate them to ride out a
full quarantine. If a person un-
derstands the role they play inpreventing disease it is easier
to get them to do the things
they need to do, she said.
“We don’t have the staff to
monitor everyone,” she said.
The coronavirus is unlike
most of the 70 other infec-
tious diseases that disease de-
tectives in New York City pre-
viously have tracked because
the only tools public-health of-
ficials really have is quick
testing and isolating infected
people, said Neil Vora, the di-
rector of informatics, data and
outbreak response for the New
York City Department of
Health and Mental Hygiene.
Other infectious diseases,
such as measles, can easily
spread, but are fought with a
readily available vaccine, said
Drs. Vora and Amler. There is
no vaccine for the coronavirus.
Mr. de Blasio has said the
city needs more disease detec-
tives and is borrowing staff
from the city’s public-health
system. In New York City, the
disease detectives are epide-
miologists who come from a
variety of different fields, fromCity Weighs Steps
To Halt Virus in Jails
said. “Think about it: New Ro-
chelle has double the amount
of cases as New York City.”
New York state has 173 con-
firmed cases, no deaths and
only 14 people in hospitals, he
said. Most of those hospital-
ized were in vulnerable high-
risk groups, such as the elderly.
New Rochelle, a city about
20 miles north of New York
City, has a population of roughly
79,000 people. The Westchester
County area has 108 virus cases,
Mr. Cuomo said. New York City
has 36 cases with about 2,
people in quarantine.
The epicenter of the zone isthe Young Israel of New Ro-
chelle, a synagogue at the heart
of a modern Orthodox commu-
nity that was attended by a 50-
year-old attorney dubbed “pa-
tient zero” in the state.
A message on the New Ro-
chelle school district’s website
said three schools within a mile
of the synagogue will close
from the morning of March 11
through March 25. The district
has about 11,000 students.
“It is inevitable that one of
our students or staff will con-
tract the virus,” the district’s
message said. “What is in our
control is to be ready, calm,decisive, and responsive.”
Several schools in neigh-
boring Tuckahoe that fall in
the zone will be closed as well.
Betty Rodriguez, an accoun-
tant with two children, said
she worried that their New Ro-
chelle school would close, so
she called day-care centers,
but none had space. She
couldn’t find nannies willing to
come to New Rochelle either.
“Nobody is coming in, we
are down 80%,” said Zo Shahid
Zohabe, a manager at a Ken-
nedy Fried Chicken in central
New Rochelle. “Everybody is
afraid of getting sick. Now theGREATER NEW YORK
National Guard will come in. It’s
going to be like a ghost town.”
Westchester County Execu-
tive George Latimer said the
presence of National Guard
personnel may be concerning
to some residents.
“When people see armed
officers on the streets of an
American city, we think some-
thing bad is afoot,” he said on
CNN. “Their purpose is to deal
with people who are going to
be inside their homes under
quarantine, and make sure
they do get food, medicine—
things that will keep them
from having to go outside.”Just more than two weeks
ago, New Rochelle, N.Y., had a
busy shopping and dining dis-
trict and a synagogue bustling
with religious services.
Now, this Westchester
County suburb has become
ground zero for one of the
largest efforts in the country
to contain the spread of the
novel coronavirus.
Many residents are in quar-
antine. Businesses are strug-
gling. And on Thursday, New
York state plans to close
schools for two weeks in a
roughly three-square-mile area
of New Rochelle and limit large
public gatherings, officials said.
People would be able to en-
ter and exit the zone and move
about within it. Restaurants
and businesses would remain
open, officials said, but facili-
ties such as houses of worship
and schools would be closed.
Mr. Cuomo said the National
Guard would be deployed to
the area to help with cleaning,
food delivery for people under
quarantine, and transporta-
tion. Northwell Health, a pri-
vate hospital system with a
private lab, will set up a satel-
lite testing facility in the area.
The containment is believed
to be the first in the country.
“This is unique in the United
States of America,” Mr. Cuomo
By Jimmy Vielkind ,
Leslie Brody and
Costas ParisNational Guard Heads to New Rochelle
The city launches one
of the largest efforts
in the U.S. to contain
the spread of the virus
A student at New Rochelle High School on Tuesday. This week schools and houses of worship will be closed for two weeks.DAVID DEE DELGADO FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNALbiostatistics to veterinary medi-
cine, a spokeswoman said.
The work sometimes re-
quires a light touch. Annoy a
traveler who is under isolation
after traveling to China, for
example, and there is the risk
the person will stop answering
the phone, Dr. Vora said.
“You’re talking to people re-
peatedly over several days,
you’re certainly going to de-
velop a relationship,” said Dr.
Vora. “Most of the time it’s
very friendly, and sometimes
people are more adversarial be-
cause they like their privacy.”
New York City has health
police who make unannounced
spot checks on homes to en-
sure people are abiding by
their quarantine. For those un-
der quarantine and who need
it, the city also offers such
services as mental-health sup-
port or basic necessities like
food, a spokeswoman said.
“We’re at a point where we
have a chance to contain this,”
said Dr. Amler. “But we won’t
know for certain until it plays
out a bit more.”Public-health officials are
turning to disease detectives to
try to stop the growing spread
of the novel coronavirus.
Teams of public-health
nurses, infectious-disease doc-
tors and epidemiologists track
down and interview patients
and anyone they came into con-
tact with to assemble a trove of
data. They are part of the larg-
est mobilization of public health
in New York state’s history.
“Let’s say someone calls the
hotline and says, ‘I was with this
person,’ ” said Sherlita Amler,
Westchester County Commis-
sioner of Health, who is oversee-
ing the county’s efforts. “ ‘Where
were you? What were you do-
ing? Who else was there? How
did they look? Were they sick?’
That’s a piece of the puzzle.”
In New York, as the number
of new coronavirus cases is
expected to rise exponentially,
the focus has shifted from in-
coming travelers to aggres-
sively containing cases that
arise because the disease is
spreading within communities.
“Community spread is an
entirely different ballgame,”
Mayor Bill de Blasio has said.
“It makes it a lot harder for us
to control the situation.”
As of Tuesday, there were
173 confirmed cases of the cor-
onavirus in New York, and
thousands of people were un-
der a precautionary quarantine
across the state; dozens of peo-
ple are in a mandatory quaran-
tine, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.
Westchester County has be-
come a hot spot for the virus,
the governor said. Public-
health nurses donned protec-
tive equipment to enter homes
and perform swab tests to de-
termine how far the virus has
spread. They also conducted
extensive in-person interviews
of close contacts of the person
who was the county’s first
case, Dr. Amler said.
Their questions can feel
BYMELANIEGRAYCEWEST
Big Demand for Disease Detectives
A technician tests Covid-19 samples at Northwell Health Imaging at the Center for Advanced Medicine.LEV RADIN/PACIFIC PRESS/ZUMA PRESSNew York City correctional
officials said Tuesday they
were preparing measures to
stop the coronavirus from in-
fecting staff and prisoners at
jails that experts said could
become incubators for the rap-
idly-spreading disease.
The Department of Correc-
tion is focused on keeping its
jail cells and shared space clean,
screening visitors for symp-
toms, raising awareness with
posters about avoiding the dis-
ease and encouraging inmates
to keep a physical distance from
each other, officials said.
There haven’t been any con-
firmed cases in the city’s jails,
said Jacqueline Sherman, in-
terim chairwoman of the Board
of Correction at a meeting on
virus preparedness Tuesday
with jail and health officials.
But that could change quickly,
she said. “If [the virus] further
reaches into New York City,
the city can expect to see it
reach the jails,” she said.
Lawyers and prisoner advo-
cates voiced concerns about
the impact of an outbreak
reaching the city’s jail facilities.
More than 5,000 inmates are
housed daily in New York City
jails, including the main facility
on Rikers Island. The jail popu-
lation is constantly coming and
going, with employees com-
muting to work there, attor-
neys visiting their clients and
inmates being transported for
court appearances.
City officials said an out-
break may lead to a staffing-
resource problem and an in-
crease in employees calling
out sick. Another concern:
Many people who are infected
aren’t symptomatic and could
spread the disease before they
realize they have it.
Patricia Feeney, deputy
commissioner of quality assur-
ance and integrity at the De-partment of Correction, and
other officials said the city
had instituted screening
throughout the court system.
There is now regular monitor-
ing for inmates and staff for
fevers and flulike symptoms. If
a prisoner exhibits any, he or
she will be given a mask and
isolated, then flagged for im-
mediate medical treatment.
Advocates said prisoners
would have trouble following
government CDC guidelines for
avoiding getting or spreading
coronavirus. Prisoner advo-
cates said basic behavior like
hand-washing or self-quaran-
tining can be difficult in jail.
Items like hand sanitizer are
deemed contraband due to its
high alcohol content.
In all scenarios, inmates areheld in small, confined spaces,
making jails conducive for the
spread of diseases, said Homer
Venters, former chief medical
officer at New York City’s Rik-
ers Island jail complex.
“It’s virtually impossible to
clean or wipe down all the
parts of the jail on a routine
basis,” he said. The most im-
portant measure would be lim-
iting the number of people en-
tering correctional facilities.
Half the U.S. prison popula-
tion has an underlying illness,
and have health-care needs that
make them especially suscepti-
ble to the virus, said Josiah D.
Rich, professor of medicine and
epidemiology at Brown Univer-
sity. “It’s just a matter of time,”
he said of the virus reaching
correctional facilities.BYDEANNAPAUL‘It’s just a matter of
time,’ before the fast-
spreading illness
reaches facilities.Wife of Man Tied to
Illness Urges CalmThe wife of a Westchester
County lawyer at the heart of
New York’s cluster of corona-
virus cases said Tuesday she
hopes people will be calm,
safe and rational during this
time of uncertainty.
Adina Lewis Garbuz said in
a Facebook post that although
she had no desire to be in the
limelight, she hoped the detec-
tion of her husband’s illness
would be a blessing by leading
to quicker containment. She
said he went to the doctor
many times but it took a hos-
pital days to diagnose the virus.
“Maybe he is a messenger
of something good, that his
illness was able to make us all
aware of the problem,” said
the New Rochelle mother, a
lawyer who tested positive for
the virus and is in quarantine
at home with two children.
Her husband Lawrence Garbuz
is hospitalized in Manhattan.
While expressing grati-
tude for an outpouring of
support, Ms. Garbuz said her
family also has seen plenty of
irrational behaviors. She said
one laundromat wouldn’t
clean clothes for her other
children who were cleared by
a federal health authority.
Ms. Garbuz wrote that she
would usually be baking bread
as gifts, a tradition on the
Jewish holiday of Purim. “That
won’t happen this year,” she
wrote. “For some reason no
one wants my food right now.”
—Leslie BrodyNY