BY JIMMY LAWTON
North Country This Week

CANTON – Efforts to increase testing for COVID-19 are underway in St. Lawrence County.

A limited access to lab testing has kept the numbers of people being tested here low. In fact, fewer than 10 tests have been performed in St. Lawrence County as of March 13, despite four colleges announcing a move to online format, schools making preparations for potential closures, and mass event cancellations.

But Congresswoman Elise Stefanik says an announcement from the Federal Drug Administration Friday should allow that to change.

In a brief interview Friday Stefanik credited local health officials for their efforts and said she expects local testing to ramp up substantially in the next few days.

“The most accurate information is hospitals and county public health officials have the testing supplies,” she said, referring to the ability to collect samples via swabs.

Stefanik said that hospitals and providers can take samples, but the actual testing needs to be done in labs, and up until now there haven’t been enough labs approved to perform the tests.

“The issue has been that the CDC and FDA have been approving which labs are able to run those tests. And the good news is today the FDA announced that New York State Department of Health can allow private lab testing.”

Stefanik said her staff has been in touch daily with all hospitals in her district including St. Lawrence-Health System facilities in Potsdam, Gouverneur, Massena and Canton, and Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center in Ogdensburg.

St. Lawrence County Public Health Director Dana McGuire said that her department is not doing the testing, but it is being handled by hospitals and healthcare providers.

She says hospitals and providers have the ability to test some people, but not enough to test everyone.

“I think we are waiting to see how things will increase and what changes will be occurring in regard to testing sites,” she said.

Olezenak-McGuire said the ability to test has been limited, but she does not have exact numbers.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who had taken steps to increase testing even prior to the FDA announcement, ramped testing efforts higher Friday.

He said the state is partnering with BioReference Laboratories to run an additional 6,000 tests per day.

This is on top of the testing that will be conducted at the 28 public and private labs across the state and the out-of-state labs that New York has already contracted with.

"The single most important thing we can do to combat and contain the novel coronavirus is test for it, and while the federal government was caught flatfooted in the midst of this crisis, New York has stepped up to fill in the gaps and ramp up testing capacity," Cuomo said.

"As we run our own test and test more people, the number of people that we find with the virus is going to keep going up, but New Yorkers should continue to remain calm and remember that the more positive tests we find, the more we can limit the virus and reduce its spread."

The governor Friday also waived the 180 day requirement for school districts in case of closures become necessary.

Finally, the Governor also confirmed 96 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 421 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 421 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:

Albany County: 2 (1 new)

Broome County: 1

Delaware County: 1

Dutchess County: 3 (2 new)

Herkimer County: 1

Monroe County: 1

Nassau County: 51 (10 new)

New York City: 154 (59 new)

Orange County: 3 (2 new)

Rockland County: 9 (2 new)

Saratoga: 3

Schenectady: 1 (1 new)

Suffolk County: 28 (8 new)

Ulster County: 5 (1 new)

Westchester County: 158 (10 new)