The average of new COVID-19 cases each day went up for the first time last week since Onondaga County began reopening eight weeks ago. County Executive Ryan McMahon said the uptick is largely driven by groups of people gathering without wearing masks or maintaining distance from each other.
“We weren’t making mistakes at gatherings like this on Memorial Day weekend or Easter Sunday, when we were in more of the heat of this,” said McMahon “Now, we’ve made quite a few mistakes over the 4th of July period of time, maybe the week going into it.”
McMahon said three clusters are responsible for the higher numbers. One is an outbreak at a memory care facility, but the other two are a result of parties. Young people are increasingly among the new cases of COVID-19. In the last 30 days, there have been 100 new cases of the virus in people under the age of 19. McMahon is hoping young people will get tested for the virus, and plans to bring the mobile testing unit to this population this week.
Meanwhile, there is good news for the county’s economy. Ultra Dairy is expanding again and creating over 50 jobs.
“Their phase two expansion will be related to aseptic processing so they can package their product and send it out for extended periods of time to other places,” said McMahon. “We know how important food security is. This is going to be a $28.5 million capital investment that Ultra Dairy is going to move forward with, retaining 198 employees and creating 64 new jobs.”
The county is still hoping for direct federal aid to come in the next stimulus package. McMahon said anything less than $40 million won’t be enough.
