May 10, 2020 | 2:06pm | Updated May 10, 2020 | 2:06pm
New York has now seen at least 85 children stricken by a new coronavirus-linked inflammatory syndrome — along with two more possible deaths, Gov. Andrew Cuomo revealed Sunday.
“It is a situation that has taken the lives of three New Yorkers,” Cuomo said of the mysterious sickness that mimics the rare inflammatory condition Kawasaki disease.
“There are two additional deaths that are currently under investigation as possibly related to this same situation,” he revealed at his press briefing Sunday.
The 85 cases were up from the previous tally of 73 statewide.
The Big Apple accounted for at least 38 of them, more than double the previous count of 15 — and with nine other possible cases being tested, Mayor Bill de Blasio also revealed Sunday.
Hizzoner called it “deeply, deeply troubling” that “we’ve actually lost a child to this syndrome” following the death of a 5-year-old boy last Thursday at Mount Sinai’s Kravis Children’s Hospital.
Of the confirmed cases, almost half tested positive for coronavirus at the same time — while 81 percent of the rest had virus antibodies, showing they had previously been exposed, Hizzoner said.
The “new threat” is now a “major priority” for city health officials, de Blasio said.
The other confirmed fatalities are a 7-year old in Westchester and a Suffolk County teenager.
Cuomo said that it has been tricky to detect because it “does not present as a normal COVID case,” by attacking blood vessels and the heart rather than the respiratory system.
“It’s possible that these cases were coming in, and not diagnosed as related to COVID because they don’t appear as COVID,” he conceded.
“It may be possible — and it may even be probable — that this is a situation that exists in other states,” he said, with New York health officials alerting departments across the US of the warning signs.
