Onondaga County has identified its first case of the omicron variant, Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon said Monday.
The case, according to McMahon, was identified by Upstate Hospital and traced back to the end of November. McMahon said the finding confirmed the echoes of himself and the county health commissioner that the variant had probably been in the community for some time when concerns first began to arise.
“Everyone needs to take a deep breath,” said McMahon. “Like everything, we’ll get through it and learn to live with this virus.”
“We have our first case, which shouldn’t be surprising. As of now, what we know is omicron is highly transmissible. How serious that is? That’s still up in the air. What we’re seeing is milder cases at this point,” said Dr. Indu Gupta. “The key to preventing this from further worsening in our community, or anywhere, is to get your first dose, second dose, third dose or your booster.”
Gupta reiterated that while omicron is a concern, it is not as dominant as the delta variant in the county, which she said is still the focus of the health department to get under control.
The health commissioner and executive spoke on the new state mask mandate Monday, as well, saying that the health department and county executive’s office will be supporting businesses through the new rules.
“We’re going to be a support system for the business community,” said McMahon. “Nothing’s really changed right now. Let’s continue to support our local businesses and our local restaurants.”
As far as cracking down on businesses that are not complying with mask mandates, by means of imposing fines upward of $1,000 per noncompliant customer, county leaders said punishment is of less importance than spreading information and encouraging businesses to be at the front of aiding the community in the fight against further spread.
“We are not talking about [the fines]. We have said from the beginning that it is important to do the outreach,” said Gupta.
“We’re taking the approach of educating businesses and hoping they’ll get on board and ask for partnership. Overall this is very difficult, to do this, [and distributing fines] is not the best policy. We look at this as a rallying call from the state to get people re-engaged and ask for partnership,” said McMahon.
Gupta also said Monday that she is seeing a rise in flu cases throughout the county, reiterating her call for residents to wear masks and get vaccinated.
As of Monday, Onondaga County is reporting 1,777 active cases of the coronavirus, averaging 59 cases per 100,000 residents.
