NYC University Student Tests Positive For Coronavirus: Officials

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — A Washington Heights university student has tested positive for new coronavirus, canceling classes at the neighborhood's college campus, school officials announced Wednesday.

The Yeshiva University student, who lives in New Rochelle, is the son of a 50-year-old man who became the second confirmed case of coronavirus in New York City on Tuesday. The man's daughter, wife and a neighbor who drove him to the hospital also tested positive, officials said.

The family, including another child who went to SAR High School in Riverdale, are isolated at their home in Westchester County, officials said. Their father is being treated at a Manhattan hospital.

News of the positive diagnosis of the Yeshiva student led officials to cancel classes at the Washington Height's campus early Wednesday morning, according to an alert online. The city is also testing the student's close friend and roommate for the virus.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family as well as to all those affected," officials said in the alert. "This precautionary step will allow us to work with city agencies and other professionals to best prepare our campus and ensure the uncompromised safety of our students, faculty and staff."

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The cancelation includes classes only at the Wilf Campus on West 185th Street and will include graduate classes and a boys high school on campus. The university's other three campuses, two in Manhattan and one in the Bronx, will run as normal, officials said.

The dormitories and food services will stay open on the Wilf Campus and all essential staff should still come to work, the university said. Other staff were told to work remotely.

So far, there have been two confirmed cases of coronavirus in New York City. A woman who lives in Manhattan and had traveled to Iran was the first New Yorker to receive a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis.

The woman and her husband, also a health care worker who traveled to Iran, chose to self-isolate after she began showing symptoms and is awaiting the results of his test, officials said.

Eight other New York City dwellers have been tested and cleared, according to the mayor.

New York City Transit has launched a massive scrub-down system in subways, buses and trains and New York City has reserved 1,200 hospital beds dedicated to treating novel coronavirus, officials said.

As of Wednesday, there are 94,250 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide and 128 in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Nine U.S. residents have died and seven have recovered from COVID-19, data show.

Update: As of Thursday, the roommate and friend of the Yeshiva University student with coronavirus tested negative for the virus.