BY ANDY GARDNER

North Country This Week

CANTON – One of St. Lawrence County’s top public health officials says people should assume that more contagious COVID-19 variants are likely present here. The best way to prevent them from spreading is for people to get vaccinated and continue public health mitigation measures, Dr. Andrew Williams said.

“Ongoing public health measures and vaccinations are how we can stop these variants from being more of a problem,” he said, adding that “rapid, widespread rollout (of vaccines) is important.”

Public health measures include wearing a mask, physical distancing, hand hygiene, staying home when sick and staying local.

The St. Lawrence County Board of Health president addressed the St. Lawrence County Board of Legislators during their Monday, March 1 meeting.

“We should assume it’s quite likely we have the variants in our community and take the appropriate steps,” the doctor said.

He said the variants have been found in neighboring Jefferson County and nearby Essex County. He believes they could be here because local labs aren’t able to test for them. They can confirm infection, but not if it’s caused by a variant.

He said the state is looking for them in the North Country region, but they’re “less specific in what they’re doing in our county.”

Clarkson University is doing analysis of wastewater to check for COVID-19. Dr. Williams said they may be able to detect the variants.

“I’m optimistic by monitoring the wastewater for these variants, we’ll get information in an innovative way, possibly faster than other techniques,” he said.

The variants are caused by mutations in the novel coronavirus’s RNA. There are now four – the United Kingdom, South Africa, Brazil and New York City variants.

The current COVID-19 vaccines are believed to be effective against the U.K. and South Africa strains, but there needs to be more research before that can be confirmed if the Brazil and NYC mutations.

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