Evening News Brief
Written by Tom Tharp on January 6, 2021
The UK strain of COVID is most likely in Monroe County according to experts at University of Rochester Medicine. The Saratoga Springs positive case was not a person who traveled outside of the US or the state so the belief is that he was infected by community spread. Based on spread and the movements of people within the state officials believe that the UK strain has spread to most cities in NY already. The testing is still very early and expensive so not many people have been checked for the new strain. Governor Cuomo warns of the new strain being more infectious and the possibility of overwhelming hospitals.
Empire State Development today announced the more than $3 million “Raising the Bar” Restaurant Recovery Fund to assist restaurants in New York State during the COVID-19 pandemic. The fund is for restaurants to buy and install equipment in order to comply with COVID 19 regulations and also set up outdoor dining during the winter. Qualifying purchases and expenditures must be from Sept. 1, 2020 onward to be eligible. Initial round of grants are up to $5,000.
COVID Update: Genesee county has 91 new cases and 35 people have recovered. 21 people are hospitalized. 1 resident at Genesee Senior Living and a resident at Leroy Village Green have passed away from COVID. Orleans County has 25 new cases and 20 people have recovered. 19 people are hospitalized. There are 228 active cases in Genesee county and 241 in Orleans. There was a covid positive person at Denny’s in Batavia from 9:30am-3:30pm on December 29th and 30th. If you were at Denny’s during these times monitor yourself for symptoms for the next 14 days.
The petition worked! Or at least it looks like it did, Governor Cuomo has announced that he will not attend the Bills first playoff game on Saturday. Instead he is giving his ticket to an ECMC Nurse. At the time of the announcement more than 40 thousand people had signed the petition for Cuomo not to attend the game. Cuomo says that he has to re-write the state of the state address because of the results of the Georgia Run off election.
Batavia Downs has chosen the 6 people who will be given playoff tickets. Batavia downs accepted nominations for frontline and healthcare workers before the new year and says that hundreds of nominations were received. The winners are Kaitlin from ECMC, Dan from Rochester General, Stephen from the Buffalo Medical Group, Melinda from Rochester Regional Health, Paula from Buffalo General and Cortney from ECMC.
