3 COVID-19 Patients Found Dead in Hotel

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has promised an investigation of the deaths of three coronavirus patients found dead over the weekend at a hotel where they were being quarantined during recovery. A 70-year-old man and a 42-year-old man were found dead in their rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn in Times Square on Saturday, People reports. A 64-year-old man was found dead Sunday. They had been sent to the hotel from different hospitals to recover from the virus in isolation. "It’s obviously tragic," the mayor said Monday. "As I understand it, these are three people who were in hospitals for COVID-19, got care, recovered, and were released."

It's not clear whether the men's deaths were virus-related. Coronavirus patients from across New York City have been sent to the hotel when they lack the space at home to self-quarantine away from family members, the New York Daily News reports. Staff members are supposed to check on the patients if they do not respond to wellness check phone calls, although the family of one man says it was very difficult to contact him, reports NBC New York. "We’re doing a full review right now to understand what happened," de Blasio said Monday. "If they were all discharged and all from different hospitals, something doesn’t make sense here, and why are these people—why have they lost their lives?" (More coronavirus stories.)