20 More Test Positive in Oneida County, But Here’s The Good News

Twenty more Oneida County residents are positive for COVID-19. Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente shared the update numbers during his daily briefing on Wednesday.

The 20 new cases brings the total number of lab confirmed cases in Oneida County to 1,290.

Over the last few weeks, most of Oneida County's daily COVID-19 updates have included about 15-to-20 new lab confirmed cases each day.

When the pandemic began back in March, the county was only seeing about 3-to-5 news cases a day. That continued for much of April. While there were spikes in the number of new cases back then, most days the county executive daily updates reflected increases in the single digits.

But, here's the good news: Testing for COVID-19 has grown exponentially since then.

Picente noted that fact while giving a LIVE update to media, via conference call, on Wednesday.

According to statistics, the current 7-day average for diagnostic testing in the Mohawk Valley Region is approximately 1,000 tests per day. So while the number of new cases is higher than it was in the county, it's important to understand many, many more people are getting tested.

To date, just 1.2% of the tests conducted have come back positive, which is a good news, Picente said.

With the Mohawk Valley Regoing moving toward Phase 4 of New York's Restart next Friday, the county executive gave a stern warning to businesses who have been opened and those just reopening.

''You must take precautions to keep your employees and customers safe. If you don''t, we will take action,'' Picente said.

And, there was more good news on Wednesday: Picente had no new fatalities to report.

To date, the Oneida County has seen 82 lives claimed by coronavirus. Of the 82 deaths, 64 (or 78%) were nursing home patients.

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