UPDATED: April 14, 2020 at 3:00 p.m.

Onondaga County has confirmed two deaths from the coronavirus since Sunday, County Executive Ryan McMahon announced Monday.

The patients were women in their 70s and 80s, McMahon said at a media briefing. The county has reported 11 deaths from the virus in total.

“This is a grim reminder to all of us how deadly this virus is,” McMahon said.

The coronavirus causes COVID-19, a respiratory disease that has infected at least 195,000 in New York state as of Monday and killed more than 10,000. Onondaga County has confirmed 26 cases of the virus since Sunday, bringing the total number of reported cases to 520.

The number of active cases in Onondaga County has begun to plateau, while the number of recovered cases continues to rise, McMahon said. As of Monday, 257 patients have recovered from the disease.

Of the county’s confirmed cases, 252 are currently active. Active cases take into account patients who’ve contracted COVID-19 but have not recovered or died.

There are 49 individuals hospitalized for COVID-19 in the county, and 20 patients are in critical condition. Of the patients, 28 are white, 10 are Black and 3 identified as “other,” McMahon said. The race of eight patients is currently unknown, McMahon said.

More than 1,000 people are currently in isolation or quarantine after being directly exposed to the virus, McMahon said.

Officials are currently waiting to receive 64 COVID-19 test results, the lowest number since the triage site at the Syracuse Community Health Center opened March 16, McMahon said. The decline in pending results is a sign of improved testing speed and capacity, he said.

In an effort to monitor the disease’s spread, county officials will start tracking COVID-19 in waste and sewage samples to chart and compare infection rates, McMahon said. The measure could help with long-term tracking and potentially alert officials more quickly if the disease returns later in the year, he said.

Social distancing has continued to be the most effective method of slowing the spread of the disease, McMahon said. Continuing to practice social distancing will help decrease the number of cases and help community leaders design plans for a potential economic restart, he said.

Grocery stores may have experienced slight surges in customer activity over the weekend because of the Easter holiday, McMahon said. Officials anticipated this, but McMahon said he’s confident in the county’s social distancing policies. The county implemented a voluntary shelter-in-place order April 7 that will remain in effect until April 21.

More activity throughout the weekend may have hurt the county’s social distancing data projections, which fell to a C- grade, he said.

“There’s no way to police this 100% and I know people are getting frustrated, especially people who take this very seriously,” McMahon said. “But I think overall as a community we’re doing better than we were, even if some of the moment in time data doesn’t reflect it.”

McMahon stressed the importance of remaining vigilant as a community to avoid a premature economic restart and an increased rate of infection.

“The data is going to drive this process just like it has the whole time,” he said. “How do we get the data to continue to go in the right direction? We starve this virus.”

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, the number of confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19 in New York state was misstated. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on April 13, 2020 at 11:02 pm

Contact Marnie: ammunozc@syr.edu