CHENANGO – The Chenango County Health Department recently confirmed a local restaurant and school district had to close their facilities due to COVID infections.

Health officials also reported that it was likely Chenango County would get a vaccine within a week or two and the first people to get it would be high-risk nursing home residents.

On Tuesday the department confirmed the Norwich McDonald's, this week, and Oxford School District, last week, had closed their doors after a number of COVID-19 cases were reported.

According to Chenango County Director of Environmental Health and Code Enforcement Isaiah Sutton the business decided to close their restaurant after learning of the cases. “At least two cases have so far been confirmed, with a handful of others quarantined over suspected exposure to the virus,” he said.

He said a large teacher quarantine in Oxford and a few confirmed cases in the “school community” had raised the alarm with school officials, who opted to move classes to remote learning only, last week.

“The Oxford schools did close last week because of a number of cases in the community. Their situation was a little different in that they had quite a few staff who quarantined, but were not necessarily positive, and that coupled with a couple of positive cases in the district made it hard to operate. And so they decide to go remote,” said Sutton.

Why not give out more information about where outbreaks occur locally?

Asked why local officials don't give out more information about the location of COVID cases to the public, Sutton replied, “It tends to change quite rapidly, right, we'll have five or six cases pop up in this town, five or six cases – more than that really, lately. It changes so fast that by the time you say there is a hotspot in one location, tomorrow it will be in another, and there is no real way to track that in real time.”

“If anyone is making a decision, ‘Oh, I'm not going to go to New Berlin’ for example, because 'I read today New Berlin has a cluster, I'm going to Sherburne instead, and I'm not going to wear my mask when I get there.' The public should not change its activities based on that information in their community. The numbers go up and down every day.”

“When we feel the public is at risk, we would definitely get that information out there, we haven't had a ton of that, and where we have had it, we have been able to target that messaging.”

Officials also pointed out that currently New York schools are now required to report everything online, and so is the NY State Veterans home in Oxford.

“We haven't named businesses as a rule, unless we suspect there are exposures we couldn't identify,” said Sutton.

The department has named a few locations, including a couple of bars and/or restaurants in Greene and in Norwich a few months ago, but few since.

“So in the cases mentioned, we had interviewed – and those businesses were identified and a number of folks were thought to be exposed but we didn't know who they were, right? The index case, couldn't name the other people exposed. “

Sutton explained social settings with food and bars and interaction between strangers raise the concern with officials and the level of danger to the public in those reported cases.

Asked if there had been comparable concerns at larger businesses like Walmart, Sutton replied, “No. It's very unlikely you are going to be exposed to an individual at Walmart. Unless you take your mask off and have a prolonged conversation.”

“In which case the individuals would remember, because you are friends. Right? You usually don't stop and chat up strangers for 10 minutes in Walmart. There a lot of reason to be concerned and a lot for reason to be cautious and conservative about activities and, we should base our best practices on that,” he said.

“Making people scared about local businesses for its own sake is not a public health benefit. If you go out safely and follow best practices the likelihood of being exposed in public is relatively low. We are not seeing a lot of random public transmission. Transmissions we are seeing is close contact,” said Sutton.

McDonald's is drive-thru only

The business decided to close after at least two cases were confirmed, with a handful of others quarantined over suspected exposure to the virus.

The business' drive-thru service was open Tuesday but the inside service closed.

“There have been a couple confirmed cases and a couple suspect. So I think, out of an abundance of caution they closed,” said Sutton.

“At this time we have no reason to believe customers were impacted. One, pretty early they stopped doing in-store dining, front staff was not really effected, to my understanding, and really we don't expect there to be transmittance through food, there is really no evidence to show this is a food borne pathogen,” he said.

The company closed it indoor services after learning of the outbreak. “We support that decision and commend them for doing that once they identified something was going on, they took the right steps to protect everyone involved,” said Sutton.

“There have been a number of cases identified associated with employees,” he said. “And so we are in that window, I'm not sure we have a full picture yet, but we've been working with their management to do contact tracing.”

“It really is a person to person pathogen. On our end we continue to trace contact those cases. It's not transmitted through the food, this is a respiratory illness, there hasn't been yet evidence of transmission through food,” said Sutton.

He said sharing the same space indoors, “is much riskier than having a drive-thru sandwich or a cup of coffee.”

Sutton did not recall any other business having to recently close due to COVID.

“I do think we had any close necessarily but not a lot of our businesses work in such tight quarters,” he said.

Oxford School District goes remote

The Oxford Academy School had switch to remote learning last week and canceled in-person classes, after a number of suspected and confirmed COVID cases were reported in the local community and school.

“In the case of Oxford we've been working hand and hand right along and they, out of an abundance of caution they made that decision. I think because they had a couple different scenarios going on at same time, that weren't all connected, so I think that was enough reason to hit the pause button and go remote,” explained Sutton. “And give us time and give the situation time to unfold and see if it was a larger outbreak, as it turned out not to be, just a couple unrelated incidents within the school community.”

Sutton said the top goal of the health department was to protect the community.

“The number one goal is the safety of the community, obviously right? That's paramount. But understanding that jobs and small businesses are part of that, right? That's part of a good, healthy, community,” said Sutton.

To read more about what trends health officials see in the recent rise of COVID cases and the local groups impacted, read a follow-up article in Friday’s Evening Sun. Friday’s article will also include an update on the ongoing local expansions of contact tracing.