Onondaga County's two week voluntary shelter in place ended Tuesday, and County Executive Ryan McMahon believes the order does not need to be extended at this time. McMahon said that social distancing efforts in the community have paid off.
"Two weeks prior to our shelter in place we were averaging 23 cases a day," said McMahon.
"If we had continued on this average, we would have had 722 cases today rather than 667. Certainly we can contribute at least 60 to 65 cases to the voluntary shelter in place that did not happen."
Even though the shelter in place order has technically expired, McMahon said people need to stay at home even more in the next week in order to solidify the positive trend in this data.
There was one more death Tuesday, for a total of 22 COVID-19 deaths in Onondaga County. However, hospitalization rates are falling and the community spread rate is also down, according to McMahon. The number of tests did increase due to the county proactively testing residents and employees of nursing homes and assisted living facilities. They will start testing those at independent living facilities by the end of the week.
"When it comes to testing right now, we have almost tested 2% of our county's population," said McMahon. "Which doesn't seem like a lot, but that's far greater than what other communities have done. And by this time next week, we're pretty confident we'll be closer to 3%."
McMahon also said that Onondaga County hospitals will begin outpatient elective surgery Wednesday following Governor Andrew Cuomo's ease on those regulations.
"Our hospital capacity is not a challenge," said McMahon. "These elective surgeries deal with public health as well. Having people who are sick on the sidelines for a week or two is one thing, but going into 2,3 months can lead to very, very serious things. So we're very happy that the Governor loosened up these regulations, recognizing, he listened to us."
McMahon is encouraged by the Governor's actions and believes he will be receptive to a regional restart. Central New York counties continue to work together to draft a plan for that. McMahon said so far, everyone is working together well.
