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County, City Lawmakers Discuss Virus

PJ Wendel, right, Chautauqua County executive, discusses the novel coronavirus, or COVID 19, during a Jamestown City Council work session Monday. County officials attended the council meeting to provide an update, which includes no coronavirus cases reported in Chautauqua County or Western New York as of Monday night. P-J photo by Dennis Phillips

Chautauqua County officials attended the Jamestown City Council work session meeting Monday to discuss the novel coronavirus, or COVID 19.

PJ Wendel, Chautauqua County executive, and Christine Schuyler, county public health director and Social Services commissioner, were there to provide an update on the novel coronavirus, which was a new strain that had not been previously identified in humans. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in New York has grown to 142, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday. That makes it the state with largest number of confirmed cases in the country. In New York, most cases are in Westchester County, with New York City and Nassau County having the second and third most cases.

Eddie Sundquist, Jamestown mayor, said city officials are coordinating with the county officials, who is the lead agency when it comes to the coronavirus.

Schuyler said there are no reported cases in Chautauqua County. She said one person has been quarantined over concern about where they had traveled, but the risk of them having the coronavirus illness is low.

Schuyler said people can visit the Chautauqua County website, chqgov.com, and Facebook page for updates, which will be made daily. She asked county residents to remember to take preventative measures like washing hands for more than 20 seconds, not to touch their face and to use hand sanitizer.

She added that currently the risk of contracting the coronavirus in Chautauqua County is low.

Wendel said there have been no reported coronavirus cases in Western New York. He said according to a daily call county officials had with the governor’s office Monday that most of the cases are in Westchester County, with a reported 98 of the 143 cases in the state.

In other business, the council discussed a resolution to send home rule legislation to state Sen. George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, and Assemblyman Andy Goodell, R-Jamestown, to ask the state Legislature to allow city officials to raise the cost to get a copy of birth and death certificates. The city charges $10, but would like to raise the amount to $30, which is the amount Monroe, Onondaga, Chemung and Tompkins counties and the cities of Oswego and Utica received following home rule legislation being approved to charge the same amount as the state Commission of Health. City officials made a similar request in 2013 and 2014, but the request wasn’t granted.

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