In his press conference on Thursday Governor Andrew Cuomo said the Southern Tier had shown significant improvement since the early-fall when the region dealt with a wave of COVID-19. At the time, the rest of Upstate was seeing less infection.
At this point it would be easy to say that fortunes have flipped. However, Steuben County reported 47 new cases of COVID-19 in their update on Thursday.
There were 12 recoveries and two deaths from the virus. Health officials said that the deaths occurred at nursing homes in the county.
“We are starting to see more people become positive who identify they had contact with a positive outside the investigation period. By New York State guidelines, we are only able to quarantine contacts that fall within the investigation timeframe,” officials said in a Facebook post. “As a reminder, the investigation timeframe starts 48 hours prior to any symptom onset or 48 hours prior to the test date if the positive is asymptomatic and goes through the investigation date.”
Officials say this means people who had contact with a positive case three days prior to them getting tested or showing symptoms would not be quarantined.
“We’re seeing many individuals who identified they were with already reported positives outside that investigation window, and they are also now positive,” officials added. “If you are positive, you can help slow the spread by alerting any of your recent contacts of your positive status, even if they fall outside the investigation window. If you are notified that you had contact with a positive person, limit your interactions with others and consider getting tested, especially if you have any symptoms.”
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