Onondaga County has recorded its first decrease in active coronavirus cases, county officials announced Monday.

The county currently has 186 active cases, a decrease since yesterday, County Executive Ryan McMahon said in a coronavirus briefing Monday. The number of active cases takes into account patients who have contracted the coronavirus but have not recovered or died.

Despite the decrease in active cases of the novel coronavirus, the county has experienced an overall increase in cases, McMahon said. The county confirmed 34 new cases since yesterday, bringing the total positive cases to 228, he said.

“Technically, even though we have more positive cases, we’ve had a lot of recoveries,” McMahon said. “That number going down is a big deal, and hopefully this is part of a trend, not a one day anomaly.”

The novel coronavirus causes COVID-19, a respiratory disease that has infected more than 784,000 people and killed over 37,600 worldwide. New York state has confirmed 66,497 cases of the novel coronavirus as of Monday, and 1,218 people have died. One patient in Onondaga County has died of the virus.

Twenty-three patients with COVID-19 are hospitalized in Onondaga County, and seven are in critical condition, McMahon said.

The county has conducted 3,215 COVID-19 tests, with 375 test results still pending, McMahon said. A backlog in cases has been partially responsible for the county’s continued increase in cases, he said.

McMahon also noted the economic damage the COVID-19 outbreak has caused in Onondaga County. Most of the federal assistance directed toward the state will flow into crisis centers in New York City and its suburbs, and will not reach central New York, McMahon said.

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The county has made a $1 million unbudgeted purchase of personal protective equipment for health care workers, he said. McMahon said he hopes the equipment arrives by Friday.

“We have to start talking about the economic realities of this situation, for us as a government,” McMahon said. “Many of the decisions that were made, to keep people home from work, to not allow events to happen, at the same time that’s our revenue that evaporated.”

Syracuse University, Le Moyne College and Onondaga Community College have also partnered to donate toilet paper to health care workers, as well as elderly and adult residents at home, McMahon said.

County Health Commissioner Indu Gupta urged county residents during the briefing to continue practicing social distancing even if active cases continue to decrease. It is still unknown whether patients can contract COVID-19 again after recovering, she said.

McMahon said he expects social distancing measures in Onondaga County, including school closures, to last a while longer. President Donald Trump recently extended the national social distancing guidelines through the end of April.

“I would be surprised if it doesn’t get extended again,” McMahon said. “If we start to see a little bit of hope, a little bit of light here, we’re going to need two to three real real good weeks of social distancing to really get this thing going in the right direction.”

Published on March 30, 2020 at 10:26 pm

Contact Chris: cjhippen@syr.edu