Evening News Brief
Written by Tom Tharp on February 2, 2021
New York State is fining the Villages of Orleans 20 thousand dollars and the Federal Government are fining them 66 thousand after an investigation found that nurses and staff were not wearing PPE or properly sanitizing their hands or commonly used utensils and equipment and there was cross contamination between those who had COVID and those who did not. One nurse said in an interview during the May investigation, “If we have the PPE, then I wear it but most of the time there is no PPE available on the unit.” Staff also said proper PPE was locked in the director’s office. The State Attorney General has an ongoing investigation this facility.
Tops friendly markets is receiving 96 percent fewer doses of the coronavirus vaccine than they were in January. Down to 200 doses a week for the entire chain of 51 supermarket pharmacies from 6000 doses a week. Kathy Sautter, public and media relations manager for Tops Friendly Markets, says “We’re being told to vaccinate 65 years of age and older which is a very large percent of the population here in New York state. Unfortunately, we don’t have the means to do so. We don’t have the vaccines, we can’t vaccinate. We can’t make appointments for vaccines we don’t have,” She went on to say that in order to make an appointment people must go onto the Tops website and be prepared to refresh the page many times to see if an appointment becomes available.
Although Governor Cuomo said that getting high speed internet for cheap to all New Yorkers is a big desire of his during the state of the union week long address he has pocket vetoed a study to see who in NY doesn’t have reliable high speed internet. The study was nearly unanimously approved by the state senate and assembly. The governors office said that at 3 million dollars the study was too expensive.
COVID Update: Since Friday at 4pm Genesee county has 46 new case and 50 people have recovered. Orleans county has 36 new cases and 56 people have recovered. 5 of the new cases are at Orchard Rehab and Nursing. There have been 4 deaths from covid in Orleans county, 3 of those who have passes are community members and one was a resident at Orchard Rehab and Nursing. There are 151 active cases in Genesee county and 98 in Orleans.
The Sabres game against the Islanders at 6 tonight has been rescheduled. The NHL says that the weather and the Sabre’s decision to fly has made contact tracing and precautions impossible so the game is cancelled and will be rescheduled to a later date.
