A series of troubling text messages are making the rounds on social media and in group chats claiming that there are plans to shut down New York City’s trains and roadways, and that the Army is being brought into the city in the coming days. This is unequivocally false.
The text message wrongly claims that a “friend who works in the emergency management team at the NYPD plans to put containment actions in place this weekend.” Other variants of the message pin the information on former Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Cuomo, or “sources from the NYPD.”
Both Mayor de Blasio and the NYPD have responded to the viral fake news.
The New York City's Mayor's Office also chimed in on twitter, offering New Yorkers a phone number (692692) where one can texxt "COVID" for accurate, real-time updates.
Naturally, plently of New Yorkers are concerned and confused about the coronavirus outbreak in New York City, espcially after de Blasio declared a state of emergency in the city Thursday afternoon.
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 New York City, 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.