SAFETY SITUATION
Health official addresses new COVID strain in Saratoga County
SARATOGA COUNTY, N.Y. » After New York state’s first case of the B.1.1.7 COVID variant was identified in Saratoga Springs, Saratoga County shared some information about how the situation is being handled.
County EMS coordinator Mike McEvoy appeared in a Facebook Live video on Tuesday afternoon to address questions from residents regarding COVID-19, including this new variant, vaccination planning and the area’s recent spike in cases.
“There are multiple strains of most viruses and viruses tend to mutate during their lifetime,” McEvoy explained. “There are a couple of strains that have been seen around the world with the coronavirus. This one is referred to scientifically as the B.1.1.7 strain, which emerged in the United Kingdom.”
The strain was initially discovered in December, or possibly earlier, and has spread to several other countries, McEvoy continued, noting that it has been identified in a fews tates in the U.S.
“This is one of the earliest occasions that it’s been seen in New York state,” McEvoy said of the recent local B.1.1.7 discovery.
An individual from Saratoga County tested positive for the strain, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Monday, sharing that the person had no known travel history.
With the update, the state asked that anyone who visited N. Fox Jewelers in Saratoga Springs between Dec. 18 and Dec. 24, to please get tested as soon as possible.
A testing site has been established in the Saratoga Spa State Park, at 99E. West Rd. in Saratoga Springs, where free testing is available for patrons who were at the store between those dates. The site will be open from10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily through Friday, and the specimens collected here will be sequenced and analyzed for this strain.
The link to register for testing can be found online at https://apps.health.ny.gov/doh2/applinks/cdmspr/2/counties?OpID=50501148.
New York State Department of Health and Saratoga County Public Health Services continue to actively work on the COVID-19 B.1.1.7 variant investigation involving N. Fox Jewelers in Saratoga Springs.
Employees of N. Fox Jewelers were swabbed on Monday, according to the county. NYSDOH swabbed and tested five additional individuals associated with the store yesterday; four of the individuals tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19 disease, however, further testing is currently underway to determine if they were infected with the B.1.1.7 variant strain. Of the four individuals that tested positive, three were previously known to be positive, and one person had been ill and had been isolating prior to the positive test result.
Specimens from those four positive individuals will be sequenced at the Wadsworth Center in Albany to attempt to detect the B.1.1.7 variant.
So far, just one test has come back positive for the B.1.1.7 strain, McEvoy said on Tuesday afternoon. As of early Tuesday evening, no additional individuals have tested positive for the variant, according to an update from the county.
Arrangements to test employees who were not available on Monday are being made.
The shop’s owners urge anyone who visited N. Fox Jewelers since Dec. 18 to be tested as well.
“N. Fox Jewelers was notified by State health officials late Monday that they detected a case of the Covid-19 UK strain in somebody associated with the retail store,” the business posted on its website.
An N. Fox spokesperson said in the post,“N. Fox Jewelers takes the health and safety of our staff and patrons very seriously andwe are working closely with State Health Officials on contract tracing, as well as operating guidelines given recent developments.”
The business is currently closed until further notice, a signon the shop’s door stated, noting that its highest priority is the health and safety of the community.
During the Facebook Live session, McEvoy answered some of the many questions that have been asked about the B.1.1.7 variant in the past few days.
“That virus seems to be a little bit more easily spread, and it tends to travel a little bitmore quickly than theC OVID virus that we’ve known,” McEvoy said. “It does not appear, at this point for what we know from the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, to make people more sick. It does not appear to cause different types of illness.
“And it is seemingly able to be vaccinated against with the same vaccine.”
He continued, “It concerns us in a sense that if there’s a widespread outbreak of it, we would have more people ill in the community faster, and our capacity to take care of those people, in public health and in the hospitals, could potentially be compromised if itwas to spread very quickly and with the speed that we’ve seen it spread in other locations.”
“So it certainly is not a more dangerous virus, it’s’ just easily spread and has the potential to cause more people to become sick.”
This latest local development comes at a time when Saratoga County is seeing a significant increase in COVID-19 cases.
“In the last seven days we’ve had 1,247 people come back positive in a COVID test,” McEvoy reported for Saratoga County, sharing that the county’s sevenday rolling positivity rate is about 10.7 percent.
Nearly 3,000 Saratoga County residents are currently in isolation or quarantine and to date, the county has had a total of 35 deaths due to COVID-19.
“We anticipated that there would be an increase in cases starting at Thanksgiving when people gathered in small groups, families and friends gathering together. That happened after Thanksgiving. It occurred again after Christmas and now we’re seeing the results of those gatherings that happened around [the] New Year’s holiday,” McEvoy said. “I think the combination of those things together - typically seven to 10 days after a holiday you see an increase - and nowwe have two holidays stacked on top of each other, so that would tend to explain some of the increase.”
The majority, 70 percent, of the COVID-19 cases in Saratoga County are coming from small gatherings, McEvoy added.
Handwashing, social distancing and mask wearing are all still crucial, even as some local residents experience what McEvoy referred to as “COVID fatigue.”
“That, I think, affects us all. We’re tired of this,” McEvoy said. “We’re tired ofwhat’s happening in the community. We’re tired of not being able to get back to a normal lifestyle, but I think we need to keep our guard up and keep doing what we’re doing, because if we get tired before the virus gets tired then we’re going to lose this battle.”
Following safety measures is imperative, according to McEvoy. “Until we see a drop in the total number of cases, it’s going to be very important for all of us in the county, and throughout the United States to do.” McEvoy’s COVID-19 update also included details about the county’s vaccination process, which is underway.
“The vaccine is here. It’s a light at theendof the tunnel,” he said. “We see this ending the pandemic ultimately. But to do that, weneed to have at least 70percent of our population vaccinated, and in Saratoga County, that means we need to have 168,000 people vaccinated. So far we’ve been able to vaccinate about three percent of the population, so we have a long way to go to get to 70 percent.”
Regarding this matter, McEvoy had two pieces of advice for residents. “When the vaccine is offered to you, take it. It’s safe. It’s been proven to be safe, and it’s going to be the thing that ends this pandemic.”
Secondly, “In the interim, and even after you get the vaccine, continue to wear your mask, to wash your hands and to social distance.”
McEvoy concluded, “We’ll all get through this together. It’s been a long haul, but we’re finally seeing some bright light at theendof the tunnel.”