New COVID Cases in Broome County Are Dropping

Broome County Executive Jason Garnar says there is a light at the end of the tunnel in the latest surge of cases in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

During his weekly briefing, the executive said the positivity rate in the county has fallen below ten percent for the first time in four weeks to eight percent. Garnar attributes the improvement to mask-wearing, vaccination and testing.

Toward that last point, Garnar also announced in the continued effort to push back the virus, the County is opening its testing site the health department to walk-ins as well as appointments starting Monday, January 31. Priority will still be made to appointments scheduled through www.gobroomecounty.com.

The County Executive stresses after people test, they have to follow up on any positives, either from a county or state testing facility or at-home test with reporting those results and completing the case investigation forms at www.gobroomecounty.com/HD/coronavirus.

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Broome County is also distributing home test kits. Over the past several days, kits were handed out at the B.C. transit bus terminal, shelters and through food banks.

Garnar says it has gotten some tests from New York State to specifically send home with school children and for other targeted groups but also had purchased thousands of kits in the past.  The Democrat says he doesn’t know when another large purchase may be made since it has become difficult to make those large-volume buys of kits.

Residents can still sign up to have test kits mailed to them through the federal program at www.covidtests.gov.