Ulster spike linked to clusters

Twenty-five new cases are tied to graduation parties, migrant workers, two state prisons and a manufacturing site

KINGSTON, N.Y. » Three “significant” potential coronavirus clusters, and a fourth of less concern, were discovered in Ulster County on Friday, July 3, when test results indicated 25 new cases of COVID-19 and an infection rate of 3.09 percent, County Executive Pat Ryan said.

Reached by phone Friday, Ryan said the resurgence appears to have originated at graduation parties and among migrant workers at an apple orchard in southeastern Ulster, at a manufacturing facility in the “Kingston area” and among inmates at two state prison facilities in southern Ulster.

Before identifying the town, businesses and farms involved, Ryan said “we want to make sure we have all of the details.

Ryan called the test results, which were reported online Friday on the Ulster County COVID-19 Dashboard “disheartening,” but said he believes contact tracing is working.

“This is real. This is a very important reminder that COVID is not gone,” Ryan said. “It was a likely scenario as we started to reopen that we’d see some resurgence and I think we’re catching this early enough that we’re hopeful we can contain things.”

Coronavirus test results reported Friday in Ulster County indicated 25 new confirmed positive cases out of 809 individuals tested on Thursday.

Over the past three or four weeks, the county’s infection rate was much closer to 1 percent, Ryan said.

He said about half of the 25 new cases can be traced to inmates at two state prisons in Ulster County, the Ulster Correctional Facility and the Eastern Correctional Facility, both in Napanoch. Ryan said he did not know how frequently the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision reports test results to the county.

“We don’t know if it was a result of a large number of tests and we don’t know how many tests they did,” Ryan said, deferring questions to DOCCS.

A prison spokesperson said Friday evening via email that the department has complied with guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and has “continually consulted” with the state Department of Health on testing.

Last week, the spokesperson said, it was decided that the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision would expand testing to asymptomatic inmates ages 55 and older.

The expanded pool of inmates being tested now includes:

• Those displaying symptoms of COVID-19.

• Those quarantined as a result of a contact trace (both symptomatic and asymptomatic).

• Those housed at the department’s five regional medical units, which house individuals with chronic illnesses.

• Inmates housed at the Ulster Correctional Facility’s Senior Living Dorm, for inmates ages 55 and older.

• All pregnant or postpartum inmates at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility

• All inmates ages 55 or older.

Any inmate suspected of being exposed to the virus will be tested and isolated while awaiting test results, the spokesperson said. Any inmate who tests positive will remain in isolation for at least 14 days until their symptoms are gone and the inmate has had no fever for 72 hours without the aid of medicine.

Another “potential cluster” in Ulster County, for which Ryan said there is “not a ton of detail,” involves eight migrant workers at an apple orchard in southeastern Ulster County. Among those workers, Ryan said two were symptomatic and six were asymptomatic.

He said it is believed the workers may have traveled to Ulster County from the state of Florida within the last few weeks, but prior to the travel restrictions instituted this week by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Ryan said the county has deployed a “rapid response team” of health department workers to the site.

Another six positive test results originated at a manufacturing facility in the Kingston area where six of 66 workers tested were positive for COVID-19, Ryan said. He said the head of the company asked the county to test his employees, all of whom are asymptomatic.

The source of the manufacturing facility cluster is unknown, the county executive said.

“Most concerning to me,” Ryan said, are several positive test results among “several individuals tied to a few graduation parties in a town in southeast Ulster.”

One of those parties was attended by well over 30 people, he said.

The graduation parties could present problems similar to those in Westchester County, where a recent spike in cases stemmed from parties attended by young people who had visited Florida, Ryan said. It is not known whether the Ulster partygoers had visited Florida, he said.

Ryan said contact tracing is working well in Ulster and added, “We’ll be able to contain this. We hope.”

The “big takeaway,” Ryan said, is that residents can and should get tested for COVID-19. “COVID has not gone away and we have to remain vigilant,” he said.

On Thursday, although active cases of COVID-19 were on the decline locally, Ryan announced that he had instituted a Rapid Response Plan in the event of local infection spikes.

Ryan said Ulster County’s Rapid Response Plan is being instituted in an effort to prevent setbacks seen in states that allowed businesses to reopen too soon.

In a press release Thursday, Ryan said he had spoken with town supervisors and city and village mayors in the county about the fivestep plan.

“We’re ready in Ulster County for the worst case,” he said Thursday.

The plan works to identify cases through “robust” testing, followed by investigation and contact tracing, isolation or quarantine of affected individuals for at least 14 days, communication to the public, and enforcement of the “New York Pause” order issued by Cuomo, Ryan said on Thursday.

Dutchess County reported eight new coronavirus cases on Friday, bringing the total active cases to 187 from 179 on Thursday.

Dutchess County did not report the number of tests administered on Thursday, but the state’s COVID-19 website indicated that only 0.6 percent, or 6, of the 967 Dutchess residents tested Thursday were positive for the virus.

Of the 66,392 tests conducted statewide on Thursday, 918, or 1.38 percent, were positive, according to a state press release.