Health News

COVID Update: Bracing for the Onslaught

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November 25, 2020

By Barrett Seaman–

The night before Thanksgiving and the news is not good. Despite all the reasoning, pleading and in some cases haranguing from public officials, COVID continues its stealthy pace through the country at large right down through the rivertowns.

There were 332 new positive cases reported in Westchester coming into Wednesday. That brings the county-wide number of active cases over 5,000 where it had been just over 1,500 three weeks ago.

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Sleepy Hollow broke through the century mark by posting 102 active cases, 11 of them new overnight. Dobbs Ferry has 41 active cases, three of them new. Tarrytown has 42 cases, with four added overnight.

With the combined inner villages of Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown designated as a Yellow, or warning, zone, they come under a higher level of scrutiny by the state. The average infection rate over the last five days there has been almost 8.1%–a metric that if not reversed would bring on an Orange or even a Red designation with incumbent restrictions by the end of next week.

And all this before the Thanksgiving holiday.

In his briefing Wednesday afternoon, County Executive George Latimer said his government is working with the state health department to bring a new level of statistical analysis. “This would allow us to bring additional statistics and additional information that can be shared with local officials, who have worked off what information we could give them based on the information we’ve been receiving,” he said. By doing so, communities could learn what is happening at a more granular level.

Governor Cuomo says the state is developing “a winter plan” to deal with what is now considered to be an inevitable spread of the disease in the coming weeks and months. Its primary goal is to prepare hospitals for what is to come and to minimize the strain on them. Its secondary goal is to find “the best way to safely keep K-8 schools open, through testing and best practices,” which would have the ancillary benefit of allowing working parents to earn income. Ultimately, the plan would facilitate the distribution of a vaccine, which cannot come fast enough.

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