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ITHACA, NY — Tompkins County Department of Health Reports 130 New Positive Cases of COVID-19, a Single-Day Record, Bringing the County’s Total Active Cases to 364, Also the Highest Number of Cases simultaneously active that the county has never seen.
It’s unclear how many of the 130 positive cases reported on Tuesday are from regular residents of Tompkins County compared to Cornell University students arriving in town and starting their COVID-19 testing regimes. However, the health ministry specifically said that “a significant portion is related to arrival and surveillance testing as colleges resume operations for the fall semester.” The health department said all positive cases are isolated.
Five people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19. The last time active cases were this high, during the previous local peak of the pandemic in early January 2021, 32 people were hospitalized with COVID-19. The local vaccination rate is currently around 71.1 percent. As those vaccinated have started being hospitalized for the virus for the first time locally, they are avoiding intensive care and death from COVID-19.
The health department is hosting a COVID-19 community update on Thursday afternoon, September 2 at 4:30 p.m., available at this link both during the broadcast and after.
On Monday afternoon, Cornell updated its internal testing figures after a four-day lag, showing a sky-high increase in positive tests: 201 over the past week and 157 positive over the weekend of 27-29 August. The positivity rate during this period was 2.7 percent (157 positive out of 5,633). The school also reports that 95% of its campus community is vaccinated, although it has recently moved to a yellow COVID-19 risk level in response to the increase in cases.
The new numbers are, without a doubt, frightening. But health ministry officials have reported that most new cases are asymptomatic, which means that even though people test positive, they don’t actually feel much of the effects of the coronavirus. Additionally, they said the new cases are largely the result of “close and sustained contact with a positive individual, which means more than 10 minutes within six feet of a positive case,” resulting primarily from ” large indoor gatherings that mix different groups of people. “
The mask notice remains unchanged for the general public, according to the health service.
“With this increase, we continue to urge the community to get vaccinated, wear a mask around others, and get tested when you are symptomatic or in close contact,” said Frank Kruppa, director of public health at Tompkins County. “Our nurses and healthcare partners at Cornell, Ithaca College, TC3, and Cayuga Health System are doing a remarkable job of tracking contact tracing and responding to this significant increase in positive cases.”
Kruppa continued, “As people return to normal activities and the Delta variant is more transmissible, we are seeing more and more fully vaccinated individuals testing positive. A large majority of new cases are asymptomatic and we have not seen a relative increase in serious illness or hospitalizations. Vaccines work to keep people from getting seriously ill. ”
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