Doyle and Ryan: Social distancing on a social network town hall
Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan was joined this afternoon by Dr. Michael Doyle, Executive Director and Chief Medical Officer of HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley, for a Facebook Live town hall. Some takeaways:
- The County Health Department will not issue permits for campgrounds, seasonal resorts, children’s camps, and bungalow colonies during the pandemic, which effectively prevents them from opening. No date was given for when they would be issued.
- Ryan called for a county-wide rent freeze. Kingston Mayor Steve Noble has also asked landlords to do this. However, these requests do not carry the force of law.
- The county is planning for a peak in hospitalizations at the end of April.
- Ulster has tested 1370 so far, including 600 last week at its drive-through site at Tech City. It opened another drive-through site Monday at Ellenville Regional Hospital.
- Around 15 percent of those tested have been positive. Of those, 10 percent have been hospitalized. Ryan didn’t give exact numbers, but that equals about 22 patients. Three county residents have died of COVID-19.
- According to Doyle, HeathAlliance is not suffering from any shortages of PPEs at this time.
Ryan also presented a table showing the county’s current hospital beds, ICU beds, Step-Up beds and ventilators, as well as what’s planned, and the ultimate goal (below). Ryan and Doyle discussed the planned addition of 235 beds to the Mary’s Ave. campus to increase regional capacity, which is now in the works. Step-Up beds refer to beds for patients who need to be under observation but do no require extensive care. Some of the figures under “Current” include a plus sign, meaning those numbers have already been increased from the baseline.
