Coronavirus Update, June 16, 2020

The 2020 Ithaca Festival has been cancelled due to COVID-19 and state regulations on large gatherings, reports Ithaca Journal. Yesterday’s announcement comes after the festival was rescheduled from June to August amid the pandemic.

Ithaca Festival is a four-day event with a parade, performances, food and vendors that dates back to 1977. The next festival will be held in 2021, but the specifics have not been released. Participation, vendor fees and sponsorships will be rolled over to the next festival in 2021.

In Tompkins County the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 stands at 166 as of Tuesday, with 156 of those cases having recovered. There were no new confirmed cases of the virus in Schuyler County Tuesday, and the total caseload of COVID-19 in the county stands at 14, with all cases having recovered.

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced in his press conference Monday that gatherings of up to 25 people will be allowed in regions that have approached phase 3 of reopening.

This is an up to the previous allowance of 10 individuals to gather at a time. Only 5 regions of New York have entered this phase: the Southern Tier, Finger Lakes, Central New York, Mohawk Valley, and the North Country. As of today, Western New York was also cleared for phase 3, and the Capital Region is set to enter that phase Wednesday.

Cuomo also announced that hospitalizations and deaths are currently at the lowest they’ve been since the pandemic started. He said the decreasing numbers contributed to the decision to up the number of individuals allowed to gather at once.

The city of Ithaca has announced a number of service reductions to take place over the next several months.

The Ithaca Times reports that the cuts include several programs run through the Greater Ithaca Activities Center, or GIAC, as well as cuts to the Youth Bureau program, Parks, Vegetation, and Street trees, and other city services and facilities.

These deductions are a result of further fallout due to COVID-19. The city’s announcement made note of the hardships the cuts would make in the community but that "there is no way to accommodate revenue losses of this magnitude without additional aid from the federal government or by making substantial cuts."

Contributing writing by WRFI News Interns Phoebe Harms and Tessie Devlin