Weekend News Brief

Genesee county is offering free rapid testing for asymptomatic people who believe they have been exposed to COVID 19 at the Emergency Management Office & Fire Training Facility, at 7690 State Street Road in the Town of Batavia on Tuesday and Thursday from 1pm to 4pm.  In order to make the process as easy as possible when going to the testing site make sure you have a pen, everyone in the vehicle is wearing a mask when you get there and be prepared to receive a phone call from an unknown number soon after the test to get your results.

COVID-19 Update:  From Friday at 4 pm, Genesee County has 50 new cases and 29 people have recovered.  15 of the new cases are at the Grand rehab and Nursing Facility.  15 people are hospitalized.  Orleans county has 24 new cases and 6 people have recovered.  8 people are hospitalized.  We are saddened to report that 3 people at the Grand have passed away from COVID.  There are 183 active cases in Genesee county and 77 in Orleans.

Congressman Chris Jacobs gave a floor speech in the House on Friday calling on House Democrats to approve a COVID relief extension of the paycheck protection program.  Jacobs called for the release of the already approved 138 billion dollars in CARES act funds which were not used in the first round of aid.  The extension would set a new deadline for applications allowing people to apply to receive the funds to save small businesses.  A report earlier in the week showed that 30 percent of NY small businesses were shutting down permanently because of the COVID shutdowns.

Former Army Air Corps Veteran reissued membership to the club no one wants to join at his 106^th birthday.  Sydney Cole bailed out of a damaged piper cub over Belgium into Nazi Germany held territory on January, 2^nd, 1945 and survived by using his parachute.  This made him eligible to join the caterpillar club, a club exclusively for people who have had to bail out of an aircraft that was going down and use a parachute and survive.  The caterpillar refers to the silk used to make the parachutes.  He received a plaque, the caterpillar pin and framed copies of his certificate and application from 1945 after he spent 3 months in a German prison camp.

Byron Bergen 5^th Grader Ruthie Kuipers won 1^st place in the WEGO region play to get fit challenge with a whopping 4,279 minutes or 71 and a third hours of recorded activity.  All elementary schools in the Glow  region participated and all participants received a certificate.