The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/delta-variant/)
cases coming down from a record high in Tompkins County and staffing shortages among healthcare workers worsening, Cayuga Medical Center has been strained to provide care for COVID and non-COVID patients, but have been able to adapt and provide normal levels of services.
With campus COVID cases surpassing 300 as of Thursday, President Martha Pollack sent an email to the Cornell community to discuss potential outcomes for the fall semester and to remind Cornellians to remain vigilant about staying healthy.
Though COVID risks still remained during this year’s move-in, the Class of 2025 shuffled into their new dorms free –– for the most part –– of quarantine and nasal swabs, a return to the more conventional move-in processes of the past.
The Tompkins County Health Department is encouraging all residents, regardless of their vaccination status, to wear masks indoors while around others, the department said in a health advisory issued Friday.
With nearly 70 percent of Tompkins County fully vaccinated and with New York State guidance that releases fully vaccinated individuals from masking and distancing, most Ithaca local businesses have taken down their “masks required” signs, allowing customers to linger inside without wearing a face covering.
Tompkins County reported two cases of the COVID-19 Delta variant last week — but even as the variant has caused cases to suge in some regions of the world, local experts are not sounding alarm bells for those that are vaccinated.