Coronavirus Update, November 13, 2020

The Tompkins County Health Department announced Thursday that an employee at Target in the Ithaca Mall worked during their infectious period, and also that the county now has as of this evening, 117 active cases, the greatest number of active cases the county has ever had.

The Ithaca Times reports that the Target employee worked at the store customer service desk on Tuesday, November 3rd, from 1:45 pm to 10:30 pm.  The employee is a resident of a county outside Tompkins, and that county’s health department is notifying close contacts of the employee.

On Thursday, the health department reported a total of 30 new cases, following 19 new cases on Wednesday.  

Contact tracing carried out by the health department indicates that the new cases are due to three clusters of contacts that took part in small gatherings.  One cluster is thought to be due to a series of gatherings related to one household.  A second cluster is connected to college students who attended multiple gatherings with different groups.  A third cluster is related to a church group gathering.

The health department is currently discouraging small indoor gatherings where participants are not masked, as well as outdoor gatherings where attendees are not maintaining social distancing.

Also, Cornell University announced today that it is raising its COVID alert level from green to yellow, following a jump in cases on campus.  The school’s announcement comes as Tompkins County has reached its highest number of active cases it’s ever had.

Looking at the local COVID-19 caseload, the latest numbers, released today from the Tompkins County health department, indicate that there are 23 additional positive cases, and 7 new recoveries. According to the County Health Department, that leaves 117 active cases of COVID-19 in Tompkins.

In Schuyler County, there are 4 new cases of COVID-19 reported as of today, bringing the amount of total active cases to 30, according to their Health Department.   There are currently 5 people being hospitalized in Schuyler.