This is an Informational Briefing for Saturday, May 9, 2020Please find COVID-19 resources and this video at: http://www.cityofplattsburgh.com/613/COVID-19-Information-and-Updates Word for the day: NYS 8th Congressional District Representative Jeffries today noted “This is not over for any of us until it is over for all of us.”Today the New York Times reported that a third of all COVID-19 deaths nationwide have been in nursing homes or their workers. This is the reason why the City of Plattsburgh works so hard to ask nursing homes to develop protocols for the safety or their residents and staff. I had a conversation last night with a woman gravely concerned about her own business, but also about her customers and employees. She runs a hair salon, and the last thing she or anybody wants is to have someone around her infected and have that infection spread, with perhaps dreadful consequences. A number of studies now show that communities which intervene earliest and longest around the principle of public health are those that also recover best from an economic perspective as well. We need to figure out a way to reopen safely, but only when our public health is ready for it. I watch the data the Governor sees, and am convinced he has in mind both our long term health and economic welfare. I am particularly mindful of our responsibility in this because dense areas are where respiratory viruses spread, and our city is in the third most dense cities in the State. Not surprisingly, we were also among the third most infected counties in the state six weeks ago, but our early interventions have allowed us to drop to the best quarter now. Let’s keep doing what is working, under the Governor’s leadership.
I’ve yet to hear back on my request that the Governor considers a moratorium on residential and small commerical property tax reassessments at this time. The City of Plattsburgh lowered its tax rate last year when the county assessment rate rose, but that doesn’t protect those who recently received troublingly high reassessments in this most difficult time. Nor does it help if other taxing jurisdictions don’t follow our example.
On the health front, the Clinton County Health Department reports 78 confirmed cases and 41 probable cases. Confirmed cases have risen 20%, by 13 people, in this last week. Of all positive and suspect cases, 18 are being treated or recovering. The testing rate is 12.8 people per thousand population, and there remain 4 known fatalities. Our nearest New York city, Glens Falls and Warren County has 199 positives, a testing rate of 28.2 people per thousand of population, and 21 known fatalities of residents. They have more than twice our testing rate, our positive cases, and our fatalities.
The State of New York outside of New York City has 148,624 positives and a testing rate of 53.5 people per thousand of population, almost five times the local testing rate. The entire state has 340,705 known positives, according to the Worldometer COVID-19 tracker. The tracker also reports that across the State, 26,816 people have died. There were 226 more since yesterday. 53 of those who died yesterday were in nursing homes.1.35 million positive cases will be tallied by today in the U.S., and 80 thousand deaths. MIT estimates that by Memorial Day the nation will pass the most recent upward White House revision of 100,000 total perished. The nation’s testing rate is 26.3 people per thousand of population, more than twice the local rate of testing.The world has surpassed its 4 milllionth case. The U.S. has about a third of those. There have been of more than 277 thousand deaths worldwide. The next big hotspot behind the U.S. will be Russia. I estimate it will attain the second most afflicted country status by next weekend.
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There are a lot of reasons to be optimistic, from moving to the best quarter of counties for positive cases from the worst third in April, to indications by the Governor that we may be one of the first communities to open up some construction and manufacturing following his lifting of the PAUSE order. We must also be willing to reintroduce safety measures if infections again increase. Everything we do must be consistent with what we have been doing since March 12 – that is safe social distancing. We will have to be smart about how we proceed, and be ever-mindful of protecting our community, but we’ve demonstrated we can do that, so I am confident we can now really start to manage this virus rather than have it run roughshod over us.
So remember, we protect the vulnerable among us by doing our part. And, please know your diligence and resilience is making a difference. I will do everything I can to encourage you to do everything you can. Please continue to practice extreme social distancing, and please do your part in taking care of yourselves, your family and loved ones, and the most vulnerable in our community. Please take care, and I will see you again tomorrow.