N.Y. Virus Deaths Double in Three Days to Almost 3,000: Live Updates

“This is an abundance of caution move, to make sure people are not spreading it to other people,” the mayor said on MSNBC on Friday. “It’s only pertinent when you might be close to people. If you’re socially distanced, you don’t need it. If you’re among the people you live under the same roof with, you don’t need it. If you’re in close proximity, you may use it.”

Mr. de Blasio urged city residents not to use the surgical or N-95 masks that are desperately needed by emergency services workers, doctors, nurses and other hospital staff employees who are treating infected patients.

“You can create your own version,” Mr. de Blasio said. “You can be creative and put whatever decoration you want on it. It can be as homemade as you want. But that’s what we want you to do: something homemade.”

Stockpile of supplies seized by federal agents will go to medical workers.

Nearly a million medical-grade masks and gloves seized this week from a Brooklyn man will go to medical workers in dire need of supplies in New York and New Jersey, the Justice Department and Department of Health and Human Services said Thursday.

The seized stockpile included 192,000 N95 respirator masks, 130,000 surgical masks and nearly 600,000 medical grade gloves, the agencies said.

The man, Baruch Feldheim, 43, was charged with lying to federal agents about price-gouging. He charged a doctor a 700 percent markup last month on an order of masks, gowns and hazmat gear, the F.B.I. said.

When the doctor went to pick up his order at an auto repair shop in Irvington, N.J., which was being used as a warehouse, he saw enough pallets of medical gear, Clorox wipes and hand sanitizer to supply an entire hospital, a criminal complaint said.