BY ANDY GARDNER
North Country This Week

CANTON – St. Lawrence County public health officials told the Board of Legislators that the recent uptick in COVID-19 cases is concerning and people need to continue abiding by measures to mitigate the disease’s spread.

Dr. Dana McGuire, county Public Health Department director, pointed to 19 new cases of COVID-19 in the county during the last week. That includes 13 reported between Oct. 17 and 19. She spoke during the board Operations Committee meeting on Monday, Oct. 19.

“We are seeing an increase,” she said. “The weekly cases we’re seeing are getting up pretty high. We haven’t seen a week like this since the beginning of September.”

She attributed the increase to people not abiding by public health measures intended to stop the coronavirus from spreading, like wearing a mask in public and staying home when sick.

“It seems that we’re starting to get tired of the whole response, but it’s important to keep these things in mind,” McGuire said. “We are seeing a lot of cases where people went out into public, went to school when they had symptoms.”

Dr. Andrew Williams, president of the St. Lawrence County Board of Health, said it’s important for everyone to get a flu vaccine. He said that’s because if someone were to get both influenza and COVID-19 at the same time, it “would complicate treatment.” And a surge in flu cases also has the ability to overrun hospital capacity.

“Some of the treatments we use for COVID aren’t necessarily helpful for flu, and vice versa,” he said. “With influenza, that also can overwhelm hospitals, if it’s a really bad year, and we want to make sure we can make bed space available.”