COVID-19 Update: McMahon Says County Is Ready For Restart, Hospitalization Spike Should Fall

Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon said the area is prepared to reopen the economy, despite Governor Andrew Cuomo’s indication Central New York has only met five of the state’s seven requirements. According to the state, the area still needs to increase its testing capacity and employ more contact tracers.

McMahon said they are talking to the State about modifying requirements based on the current situation. 

“Our understanding is that they’re going to be looking forward from May 15th, not backwards,” said McMahon. “Because if you look at it backwards, no community will be meeting that because every community was doing CDC guideline-based testing. So, we're going to talk to the Governor’s team about that. We had a little bit of a conversation. Moving forward, from May 15th on, doing 13,000 tests a month is not a problem.”

He anticipates the Governor will be receptive to changes, and Central New York will be on its way to Phase One of a reopening in the weeks to come. 

McMahon reported the 37th death in Onondaga County on Monday. The victim was a male in his 80s with underlying health conditions. McMahon also reported a spike in hospitalizations due to COVID-19. Fifty-one Onondaga County residents are in the hospital with the virus. McMahon said this number is a result of nursing homes bringing any resident who tests positive for COVID-19 to the hospital, whether they have severe, light or no symptoms. 

“So right now, we’re working with our hospitals and our nursing homes to get folks that shouldn’t be in the hospital out of the hospital,” said McMahon. “So that number is a moment in time, not a trend at this point.”

While he expects that number to fall, McMahon warns that people need to continue social distancing as the weather gets warmer. There were 18 new cases of community spread reported on Monday. McMahon said this seems to relate to the nice weather from a week ago.