BY ANDY GARDNER
North Country This Week

St. Lawrence County’s state of emergency will expire May 15 and it will not be renewed, unless there is an uptick in COVID-19 cases.

County Administrator Ruth Doyle reported that during the Monday, May 4 county legislature meeting held online via Zoom and streamed live on YouTube.

She said Legislator Chairman Joe Lightfoot has “full contingency to re-declare (a state of emergency) if things change.”

The county administrator said the county’s Emergency Operations Center will be closed on weekends, and will close permanently when the state of emergency expires.

“When the 15th arrives … we will resume the operations at the Emergency Services Department,” Doyle said.

Dr. Andrew Williams, St. Lawrence County Board of Health president, told the legislature that as of May 4, the county “for the last seven days, we’ve had only 1.7 new cases per day, on average.”

That’s a stark change from when he spoke in early April and announced that the county had the fastest growing infection rate in the entire state.

“The overall trend is quite favorable,” the doctor said.

Dr. Williams said St. Lawrence County has tested 3,640 people as of May 4, about 3.2% of the county. Of those tested, 7.9% tested positive, he said.

“There was this initial, fairly rapid increase which was alarming, then we moved into steady growth,” Dr. Williams told the board. “In the last week we’ve had a decrease of new cases … in the context of a significant expansion of testing, so it’s meaningful.”

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