Onondaga County has confirmed its 12th death from the coronavirus, County Executive Ryan McMahon announced at a press briefing Wednesday.

The patient was a man in his 90s with underlying health conditions, McMahon said. The county confirmed two deaths on Monday.

Coronavirus causes COVID-19, a respiratory disease that has infected 214,639 and killed 11,620 in New York state. The number of confirmed cases in Onondaga County rose by 26 today, bringing the total number to 563.

There are now six days left of Onondaga County’s voluntary shelter-in-place order. The order, in effect for two weeks, was implemented April 7. The county has asked residents to leave their homes on alternating days based on their birth year.

“Lets really dive into this, take this seriously,” McMahon said. “Let’s limit our behavior outside of the home to more than 50% from last week.”

As the county continues to practice social distancing, demands for COVID-19 testing will slowly diminish, McMahon. The county has tested 7,412 individuals for the virus, and 7.7% of tests have come back positive.

Quest Diagnostics, in conjunction with Walmart, is building a mobile testing site in a parking lot in East Syracuse, according to Syracuse.com. The site is a welcomed contribution to the community, McMahon said.

The site has agreed to share all of its data with the county to allow health officials to make informed decisions about the virus, he said.

While the site will be public, it will focus mainly on testing nursing home employees and health care officials. As the county collects new data, it can develop new testing strategies, McMahon said.

“If (the virus) is going to spread, it’s because of the employees coming in,” McMahon said. “Let’s look at this, let’s mitigate that risk from our nursing home residents and box in the virus with whatever employees have it.”

Although the number of cases in New York state is beginning to stabilize, nursing homes have seen an increase in deaths related to COVID-19, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a briefing yesterday. He has banned all visitors from those facilities to prevent the virus from spreading.

McMahon also urged county residents to practice social distancing and to continue following the shelter-in-place order. Social distancing is working and will stop the spread of the virus, he said.

“If we continue to starve the virus from new hosts, we’ll be in a position to look at what it looks like in the near future about getting our lives back,” McMahon said.

Published on April 15, 2020 at 9:51 pm

Contact Maggie: mehicks@syr.edu | @maggie_hickss