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Essex Center records 14th COVID-19 death

The Essex County Health Department reported another death connected to a coronavirus outbreak at an Elizabethtown nursing home on Monday.

A total of 14 residents of the Essex Center nursing home and rehabilitation facility have died in the last 42 days after contracting COVID-19. Thirteen of those people were residents of Essex County, and one was a resident of Clinton County.

Another Essex Center resident entered the hospital on Monday, bringing the total number of residents hospitalized to five, according to the county Health Department.

There were five active cases of COVID-19 recorded countywide on Monday. Three of those cases were new on Monday, and all three new cases are residents of the town of North Elba, which includes Lake Placid, Ray Brook and part of Saranac Lake. The other two cases are in residents of the towns of Moriah and Willsboro.

As of Monday, Essex County had recorded 203 cases of COVID-19 since March, a number that has increased by 118 since Aug. 17. At least 19,104 COVID-19 tests of Essex County residents have been processed since March, according to the county Health Department.

Neighboring Franklin County reported two active cases of COVID-19 on Monday. Franklin County has recorded 163 cases of COVID-19 since March, 60 of them test-confirmed and 103 suspected by doctors but not lab-confirmed — this was common practice early in the pandemic when tests were scarce.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday announced a spike in positive coronavirus test results in New York. The statewide positive test rate rose to 1.5% on Sunday; about 27% of those results came from 10 ZIP codes downstate, including Brooklyn, the Southern Tier, and Orange and Rockland counties. In response, Cuomo announced that the state would send 200 rapid testing machines to those specific areas.

The North Country region recorded a slight uptick in positive test results over the weekend, from 0.2% on Saturday to 0.4% on Sunday. That is still low, but local public health officials continue to stress the importance of frequent hand washing, social distancing and wearing a mask when social distancing isn’t possible.

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