BY ANDY GARDNER
North Country This Week

CANTON -- The St. Lawrence County legislature at a special meeting Monday night voted to contract "with outside agencies" to house people who may have been exposed to novel coronavirus.

The board also voted to contract with "various emergency agencies" to monitor travelers at border checkpoints who may show symptoms of the virus.

The quarantine would be for people who may have been exposed to coronavirus but aren't sick and showing symptoms, county Public Health Director Dana McGuire told the legislature at their special meeting Feb. 24.

She said the people would be under voluntary quarantine. The Public Health Department would monitor them daily, and they'd be hospitalized if they got sick.

"As soon as there was an illness ... they'd be brought to the hospital," she told the legislators.

She said the public wouldn't be notified of people going into isolation because at that point, they would be at risk of having contracted the virus, and not actually having symptoms.

"These people would not be ill," McGuire said.

She said they have to do the contracting because the quarantine is for 14 days. The person has to be able to be isolated from everyone else in the home and have their own bathroom.

"We would be required to provide the food. We'd have to make sure they have wifi access, because 14 days is a long time," McGuire said.

She said motels, hotels, college campuses, or an inn or bed and breakfast could possibly work for a voluntary quarantine.

The second resolution dealing with travelers at Massena and Ogdensburg ports of entry would be to screen travelers that border agents think may have been exposed to the virus.

She said the agents are asking travelers certain questions to gauge the person's risk.

"If they feel a person coming through needs to have a [health assessement] done, they would not do that," McGuire said.

The resolution says "emergency response services in the County and located within proximity to the borders have available staff and have agreed to assist."

The county will pay $100 per trip for emergency responders to "evaluate individuals at the international borders for disease specific symptoms using temperature assessment as a screening tool, record the results, and provide ambulatory transport, if necessary," the resolution says.

Novel coronavirus, according to the Centers for Disease Control, "is a new coronavirus that has not been previously identified." The World Health Organization has named it COVID-19. There are other, less severe strains of coronavirus that the CDC says "commonly circulate among humans and cause mild illness, like the common cold."

"Patients with COVID-19 will be evaluated and cared for differently than patients with common coronavirus diagnosis," CDC said.

The agency's website says authorities around the world are still trying to learn more about the disease, but they believe it's spread through person-to-person contact.

"Currently, it’s unclear how easily or sustainably this virus is spreading between people," CDC said.