As a line wrapped around a Trader Joe's in Kips Bay Thursday morning, New Yorkers stacked up on supplies amid fears of the new coronavirus.
One Trader Joe's employee told NY1 Reporter Justine Re that the amount of people in the store could be considered a fire hazard.
Once inside the store, shoppers were encouraged to wipe down their carts with disinfectant wipes before and after using them.
That trend continued over in Manhattan at the Whole Foods on 97th Street and Amsterdam Avenue where New Yorkers waited patiently outside the store shortly after 6 p.m. Video sent to NY1 Reporter Lindsay Tuchman shows dozens in a line that stretched around the block.
By 8:15 p.m. Thursday night, the meet aisle at the Key Foods on 2nd Avenue and 92nd Street was running low, according to NY1 Reporter Lydia Hu, who snapped this picture.
This all comes amid Mayor de Blasio declaring a state of emergency throughout the city, saying he was in complete agreement with Governor Cuomo about banning public gatherings of 500 people and over.
De Blasio signed the declaration as the number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the city rapidly increased.
There are now 95 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus in NYC, according to the mayor. The mayor said as of noon, there were 25 cases in Manhattan, 24 in Brooklyn, 17 in Queens, 10 in the Bronx and five on Staten Island. That covers 85 of the 95 cases in the city. Twenty-nine people are currently under mandatory quarantine, according to the mayor. De Blasio added that the city is seeing its first case of a person who is coming out of mandatory quarantine
For continued updates on how New York is handling the coronavirus, head to our Coronavirus webpage here.
If you've seen long lines at grocery stores across the five boroughs, tag us in a tweet with the hashtag #NY1Health.