• A New Jersey woman who tested positive for the coronavirus remains “at large” after she gave the hospital a fake name and address, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka announced Tuesday.
  • The woman was tested at East Orange General Hospital, where she took a coronavirus test and left. After her test came back positive, health officials arrived at the address she gave only to find that she gave false information.
  • “Because you gave a false name, because you gave a false address, you put many, many, many people at risk – not only in the city of Newark but all of the surrounding cities in the state as well,” Baraka said in a video conference.
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A woman who tested positive for the coronavirus remains “at large” after she gave the hospital where she was tested a fake name and address, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka confirmed Tuesday.

The woman went to East Orange General Hospital, where she took a test for the coronavirus, which causes a disease known as COVID-19, and left. When her test came back positive, health officials arrived at the address she provided only to find that she had given false information, Fox News reported.

“This person is a public health risk to herself and the entire community,” Baraka said. “At this point, we still have no knowledge of who this individual is.”

An investigation is underway to try to find the woman, with the city seeking a court order to obtain surveillance footage from the hospital where she was tested.

The mayor had a message for the woman, urging her to contact her health provider and head back to the hospital.

"Because you gave a false name, because you gave a false address, you put many, many, many people at risk - not only in the city of Newark but all of the surrounding cities in the state as well," Baraka said.

As of Wednesday, the coronavirus had infected more than 198,000 people worldwide, and nearly 8,000 people have died from the disease. The US has nearly 6,500 confirmed cases across all 50 states, and the US death toll has surpassed 100.

New Jersey alone has 267 confirmed coronavirus cases, and three people have died.