Livingston and Other Counties Allowed To Begin  Phase 2 on  Re-Opening Businesses.

“I am proud to say that Livingston County has reached the Phase 2 threshold to commence business re-opening of Phase 2 sectors,” announced Chairman of the Livingston’s County’s Board of Supervisors.  This means that the area may start to recover from the blows of COVID-19 and start in-roads to eventual recovery.

While the economic loss of the state’s response to COVID-19 is yet to be measure, a lifeline was thrown to both small and large businesses alike.

“Our residents and businesses have endured the social and economic hardships of this pandemic, gritted their way through, and adjusted to this new normal incredibly well, given the challenges and circumstances,” Chairman David L. LeFeber said.

“The County supports a phased-in approach to re-opening that is grounded in science, objective facts, and agreed-upon datasets and public health principles.  We do not believe that everything, at once, should be re-opened. Let me share some facts:

·        All objective indicators in Livingston County show a control in the spread and Covid19 cases
·        Livingston County meets all of the 7 state benchmarks. The Finger Lakes region does as well.
·        We have maintained more than 30% hospital and ICU capacity for the last 6 weeks, we have the lowest positive rate of cases since the inception of the pandemic at 3%, we are introducing antibody testing, and we continue to monitor all exposure and contacts by having 19 dedicated contract tracers in our Health Department.
·        Our public nursing home remains Covid19 free and is the model for public nursing homes statewide thanks to a dedicated and vigilant staff.
·        We have daily briefings with our County’s Incident Command team, where we review day-by-day health data from Livingston County on Covid19 positives, negative test results, nursing home staff and resident testing, recoveries, antibody testing, hospitalizations, and numerous other indicators.  This allows for movement, resource deployment and responsive action should an uptick in a trend present as worrisome from a public health perspective.
·        We also participate in the daily Finger Lakes Control room and share information with regional counties,” he said.