336 new COVID-19 cases, 10 new deaths in Onondaga County

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon announced 336 new COVID-19 cases and 10 new deaths on Wednesday.

According to McMahon, the month of December has been the deadliest on record since the start of the pandemic.

The seven-day positivity rate for the county is 603%. There are 309 people in the hospital due to COVID-19. McMahon said that it is important to note that even though there are less people in the hospital, 26 people were admitted on Tuesday. There were 28 discharges and then some deaths, which is why the hospitalization number is down seven.

There are 46 people in the ICU due to COVID-19.

This brings our total number of cases in the county to 20,006 since the start of the pandemic. McMahon said that from March 16 to Nov. 28, the county reached 10,000 total cases. Then, from Nov. 29 to Dec. 30, the county reached another 10,000 cases.

On vaccinations, McMahon said that if you are not part of the current group, group 1A, then you are not eligible yet. Right now, that group includes frontline workers, EMS workers, funeral home employees, and nursing home/assisted living facilities.

Starting next week, the county wants to start making sure all health care workers, especially those performing COVID-19 tests and transporting the sick, are vaccinated. According to McMahon, they are the most at-risk because they work with the virus every single day.

The county hopes to eventually have multiple points of distribution of the vaccine throughout the community. So far, the county has distributed 600 vaccines. McMahon said that the plan is to distribute 500 more vaccinations on Thursday.

McMahon also released an updated on the county’s new contact tracing text messaging program.

He said that there has been a great response from the public. The county has also staffed up in case of another holiday surge so they can continue to do investigations quickly.

The new texting tool has been helping with staffing problems.

McMahon also said that he understands the public is concerned about lockdowns. He said that, if our hospitals are overrun, that’s when lockdowns might happen.

2021 is going to be a better year, but we can’t mess around right now.

Onondaga County Executive Ryan mcMahon

During his briefing, McMahon said that if we have a surge because of Christmas and then we have another surge because of New Year’s “we are asking for trouble.”

He reiterated to the public that we can control what we do for the New Year’s Eve holiday. He suggested celebrating at home with family and to avoid any large gatherings.

Let’s be happy 2020 is over, let’s do it safely and celebrate safely… Let’s take the lessons we learned as a community… And all grow from it in 2021.

Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon

You can watch the full briefing below:

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