broome county

The governor gave updates on the current mask mandate, hospital capacity and testing, in the midst of a surge in COVID-19 cases across the state.

"We are racing against the clock now. It's important that when people want to get vaccinated or they want to get boosted, that they can do that immediately."

Since the statewide mask mandate was announced last week, New York’s counties have grappled with how to implement it. Certain counties have embraced the mandate. Others have refused to carry it out.

A total of 12 cases have been detected in New York state so far. Nineteen states across the U.S. have reported cases of Omicron.

Across the state about one in every seven positive COVID-19 tests is sent to a lab to be screened for variants. But some counties, like Tompkins, are able to screen nearly all of their tests.

Despite an increase in COVID-19 cases, fairly low vaccination rates and widespread booster rollout, the Southern Tier still has no state-run mass vaccination site.

Staffing shortages at Broome County’s Willow Point Nursing Home have forced officials to declare a state of emergency.

County officials attributed the rise in cases to residents socializing over Halloween weekend.

“You could probably assume that we have the same type of vaccination rate that the rest of Broome county does. So about a third of our sixteen to seventeen hundred employees are probably not vaccinated.”

"I would suspect that this is an example of the people who scheduled those initiatives choosing the wrong election to put those initiatives on the ballot."