Weekend News Brief
Written by Tom Tharp on December 19, 2020
With Christmas less than a week away Public Health director Paul Petit is urging people to try to slow the spread of COVID by avoiding private social gatherings. The positivity rate for Genesee county is up to 9.2 percent and the finger lakes region has the highest rates in the state. There are over 250 active cases going into the weekend and Petit is warning of the county being designated an orange zone which would mean business closures which could mean the loss of jobs when we were just starting to recover from the widespread shutdowns of the spring and early summer. Batavia was designated a yellow zone last week and case numbers have continued to climb. Petit says the contact tracing has revealed that gatherings in private homes are what is causing the spread.
Byron Bergen Schools have announced that they are going to fully remote learning for the first half of January. All learning will be remote for the weeks of the 4th and 11th with in person and hybrid learning going back into effect on Tuesday the 19th of January.
COVID Update from Friday at 4pm: Genesee county has 52 new cases and 18 people have recovered. 29 people are hospitalized. Orleans county has 30 new cases and 25 people have recovered. 2 people are hospitalized. There are 254 active cases in Genesee county and 151 in Orleans. There was a COVID positive person at the Town and Country Restaurant in Batavia on December 13th from 3 to 4pm. If you were there at this time please monitor yourself for symptoms of COVID 19.
On December 17th Livingston county emergency services along with village police, fire, ems from several towns and villages and state police took part in operation Light It Up to brighten the day for nursing home residents in Livingston county. They did a parade from the Livingston county sheriffs office and ending in Danville with stops at nursing homes and NOYES Memorial Hospital to bring Christmas music and even Santa clause to greet residents. This parade involved more than 25 different departments and brought joy to many residents who have been stuck without visitors for this Christmas season.
The Reyncrest dairy farm in Corfu has been given the 2020 dairying for tomorrow award for sustaining the dairy industry both on and off the farm. As part of the award the farm gave a large donation of milk to Pembroke Central school.
Main Street Pizza, even though they couldn’t do their annual CASAblanca casino night contribution because COVID shut down the casino night, donated their Main St for a year prize to CASA for children to raise money for the organization. A total of 275 tickets were purchased for $5 each. This first time raffle was such a huge success that tickets sold out in only a week! A live drawing was held on CASA’s Facebook page, and Patricia Wormley, of Batavia, was drawn as the lucky winner of 26 large pizzas and 26 spaghetti dinners for two.
John Kennedy Intermediate School in Batavia has received 2 grants of 500 dollars each from ExxonMobil Corporation for Science Technology Engineering Art and Math. Reid Petroleum applied for the grant and then presented a matching grant check at Batavia Crosby’s to Melissa Calandra, Kennedy’s STEAM teacher.
