BY ANDY GARDNER

North Country This Week

COVID-19 has killed three more people in St. Lawrence County.

Dr. Dana McGuire, the county's Public Health Department director, announced the deaths to the St. Lawrence County legislature's Finance Committee during their Monday, Nov. 23 meeting.

She did not give out any information on the deceased, including age, sex, hometown or where they died. She did say the average age of the nine people who have died from COVID-19 is 77.

"We are up to nine deaths since the response started in March," Dr. McGuire said.

She said the deaths had not yet been updated on the statewide COVID-19 tracker, so they weren't included in the Monday update from her department.

Coronavirus cases are surging in St. Lawrence County.

She said Public Health tracks cases on weeks that run Wednesday to Tuesday. As of the night of the Finance Committee meeting, there were 124 new cases in that week with one more day to go.

"As an average daily we're just over about 20 cases, a 500% increase since the beginning on October," she said. "The rise is quite steep."

She said there was a cumulative total of 410 confirmed positive cases in the county on Nov. 1, which rose to 754 by the night of her report.

"It's possible we could see half the cases we've seen for the full response just in this current month," she said, also noting that the hospitalization rate is also climbing.