May 11, 2020 – Irondequoit, NY – Governor Andrew M. Cuomo provides a coronavirus update during a press conference in Irondequoit. (Mike Groll/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)
IRONDEQUOIT – At least three regions of upstate New York will begin a phased reopening at the end of the week – but so far it appears Western New York is not on that list.
Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday that the Finger Lakes, Southern Tier and Mohawk Valley regions have each hit all seven of the criteria necessary to safely reopen, including declining hospitalizations and ramped-up testing capacity.
Other areas, including the Western New York, have not yet met all of the requirements but the governor said officials will continue monitoring the metrics in those regions and things could change by May 15 – the current deadline for the New York on Pause executive order.
As of Monday, Western New York has only met five of the seven.
The governor also noted that despite requests from local officials in Chautauqua County, there will be no county-by-county reopening plan. He said it has to be regional and it has to be coordinated.
“The local governments have to be in communication with each other. We do this on a regional basis so there are a number of counties in that region but its one region and this virus doesn’t respect county borders or state borders,” Cuomo said. “If you know what’s happening with your neighbor, you know what’s happening in your district.”
Sen. George Borrello said he was disappointed with the decision not to reopen the region or counties within the region.
“While infection rates in Allegany, Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties have consistently been among the lowest in the state throughout the COVID-19 crisis, our linkage with Erie County and its higher infection rates means that we don’t meet the metrics for reopening and our hurting, rural economies must remain shut down for at least another two weeks,” Borrello said. “Once again, we are seeing the damage inflicted by choosing a one-size-fits-all approach over a more flexible strategy that would address the reopening of counties with urban centers independently from the rest of the REDC zone.”
Meanwhile, the governor also said that each regional reopening is going to be monitored by a panel of local officials known as a control room “which is made up of the top officials, government officials, academic officials, healthcare professionals that are watching the situation in that region develop.”
Chautauqua County Executive PJ Wendel and Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist are the two local elected officials who will be serving on that panel.
Meanwhile, the governor also said that New York will also reopen several outdoor activities on Statewide level – including landscaping and gardening, low-risk recreation such as tennis and drive-in movie theaters.
The governor also said that Hospitalizations and intubations continued to decline statewide on Sunday, and the number of daily deaths was 161, the lowest the state has seen in a 24-hour period since late March.
While 112 of those deaths occurred in hospitals, 49 were in nursing homes, where Cuomo has said the virus spreads like “fire through dry grass.”
His administration has faced severe backlash for its handling of the pandemic’s spread in nursing homes, and the governor said Sunday that the state would no longer allow hospitals to discharge patients to those facilities unless they test negative for COVID-19.
Locally, one new case of the coronavirus was reported Monday in Chautauqua County, bringing the overall total number of confirmed cases to 43. The new case involves a woman in her 80s.
There are now seven active cases along with 32 others that have since recovered. Four people have also died.
County officials add that a total of 102 residents are either in quarantine or isolation.
The reason the death rate is so high in nursing homes is that all patients have a DNR order – do not resuscitate.. Nursing home patients with the virus simply die with comfort measures. Many dementia patients would be harmed by resuscitation, So this could be skewing the figures that Cuomo keeps throwing around. It is important to define the figures correctly. We were told that this was a disease that would kill the elderly but many young people are dying also. So the statistics which can always be worked in favor of someone’s agenda need to be clarified.