Rick Cotton, the govt. director of the Port Authority of Contemporary York and Contemporary Jersey, which operates the net site’s predominant airports, bridges, tunnels and bus terminals, has tested particular for the coronavirus, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of Contemporary York presented on Monday.
Mr. Cotton is one in all the most famed public officials within the US to possess shriveled the virus.
Mr. Cuomo said that Mr. Cotton, who had been overseeing the Port Authority’s response to the virus, had self-quarantined at his dwelling and would possibly perhaps well well perchance be working remotely.
“He has been at the airports, obviously, when many of us were coming encourage with the virus,” Mr. Cuomo said at a news conference. Mr. Cuomo suggested that Mr. Cotton would possibly perhaps well well even want been contaminated as segment of his work on behalf of the authority at Kennedy World Airport, noting that it “became once one in all the predominant airports for people coming in on those in a foreign country flights.”
Reached at his Contemporary York Metropolis apartment on Monday morning, Mr. Cotton, who is in his mid-70s, said that he had no evident signs of the virus however declined to comment additional. “I’m in self-quarantine at dwelling for the time being,” he said.
Mr. Cotton is now among the many 142 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Contemporary York Dispute, which has just a few of the supreme option of cases within the country, a range of them concentrated in suburban areas of Contemporary York Metropolis. Thousands of students weren’t at school on Monday as school districts and colleges, including Columbia and Hofstra Universities, tried to limit the coronavirus outbreak.
As properly as to Mr. Cotton, senior officials at the Port Authority who had labored shut to him were furthermore being tested for the coronavirus, the governor said.
A Port Authority spokeswoman said that agency workers who were in “shut contact with him in recent days” were furthermore working from dwelling. She did no longer snort what number of workers that spirited.
Mr. Cotton’s wife, Elizabeth W. Smith, is the president of the Central Park Conservancy, a nonprofit that helps renovate and refurbish the 843-acre park in Large apple. The conservancy did no longer as we teach answer to a ask for comment.
It is rarely particular when Mr. Cotton became once tested for the virus, however the broadcast journalist Katie Couric suggested on Monday that he simplest very no longer too prolonged ago began to self-quarantine. Ms. Couric said on Twitter that she saw Mr. Cotton, who is a longtime friend, on Saturday.
A representative for Ms. Couric did no longer as we teach answer to a ask for comment.
Mr. Cotton had labored as a lawyer for approximately two a protracted time at NBC Universal, the place Ms. Couric became once a longtime host of NBC’s “At the present time” sign.
Some individuals of Mr. Cotton’s crew learned of his take a look at results lovely before Mr. Cuomo made the announcement. It became once no longer particular how a range of them would possibly perhaps well well perchance be tested or what number of had been quarantined.
“I could perhaps well well perchance possess been in contact with Rick Cotton,” the governor said, who added that he had no longer tested particular for it.
One more regional transportation legit, Patrick J. Foye, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates Contemporary York Metropolis’s subways and buses, said on Monday that he had no longer met Mr. Cotton in person “almost as we teach.”
“By all indicators, he looks to be in gargantuan health,” Mr. Foye said at a news conference.
The Port Authority operates the Contemporary York Metropolis space’s predominant airports — including La Guardia, Kennedy World and Newark Liberty World Airports — and employs extra than 7,000 of us.
La Guardia is rarely any longer an international airport take care of Kennedy, which is the predominant gateway to Contemporary York Metropolis for international company and travelers.
Mr. Cotton, a chum and ally of the governor, has stride the agency since 2017. Mr. Cuomo appointed him to the net site.
Mr. Cotton’s net site of job is within the headquarters of the Port Authority at 4 World Substitute Heart in Lower Large apple, the net site of job complicated that the agency built and rebuilt after it became once destroyed within the terrorist assaults on Sept. 11, 2001.
Christina Goldbaum and Jesse McKinley contributed reporting.
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