#City moves to combat new COVID-19 clusters on Staten Island

The city’s Health Department has spotted two new coronavirus clusters on Staten Island, officials said Thursday as they again warned that cooler weather could lead to another deadly outbreak.

However, officials said they did not believe it would be necessary to get Gov. Andrew Cuomo to sign off on a new lockdown order in the 10305 and 10314 zip codes to contain the latest the new hotspots, where the positive test rate has exceeded the City Hall’s 3 percent warning threshold.

“We know it’s been a very long road, eight months, going into nine, and we constantly have to remind people how important it is to do the basics, to get tested, to wear masks, to practice social distancing,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters during his daily press conference. “So it’s never a surprise where we see some areas where we’ve got to address a challenge.”

Hizzoner added that officials would be building 10 new testing centers and sending 70 health staffers to the borough to better diagnose the problem and reinvigorate social distancing and mask-wearing efforts.

The latest surge comes after Gov. Cuomo imposed new lockdown restrictions down a broad swath of southern Brooklyn and two areas in Queens in a bid to contain widespread COVID-19 outbreaks.

However, health officials said the situation in the city’s smallest borough is far more contained.

“This is different than what we saw in Brooklyn and Queens, which were extended areas, interconnected areas, a bigger phenomenon, a bigger trend,” de Blasio added. “This is more isolated, less of an uptick for sure.”