Hospitals around the North Country are filling up with unvaccinated COVID-19 patients. More people are getting sick and dying than ever before during the pandemic.
While health experts agree the best way to reverse this trend is by masking up and getting vaccinated, most of the North Country’s top elected leaders have been largely quiet and unwilling to reinstate COVID rules.
In all of November last year six people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Glens Falls. This November, Glens Falls Hospital admitted 186 COVID patients.
This week, the hospital says 70% of its COVID patients are unvaccinated, as are 100% of its critically ill patients.
“It’s heartbreaking, it’s absolutely heartbreaking,” says Dr. Kathleen Braico. She’s a retired pediatrician in Warren County. She recently wrote a letter to the editor of the Glens Falls Chronicle urging people to get vaccinated.
Braico says a lot of what's happening in Warren County is avoidable.
“If we had better masking requirements, if we had stronger immunization requirements I think we wouldn’t be in this situation we’re in right now," says Braico.
There was a statewide mask mandate in New York for more than a year during the pandemic, but that was lifted last spring.
While COVID infections are soaring across much of upstate, elected leaders in the North Country are reluctant to go back to strict measures.
“I dislike the word mandate because that’s more of an authoritative word,” says Jefferson County Chairman Scott Gray, "and I would just say that we’re one community and we’re striving and we don’t have to have 30 people die.”
Jefferson County is now in a state of emergency and that emergency declaration walks a very delicate line. It says everyone in the county is “required” to wear a mask indoors, but it’s not a mask mandate. Mandates require enforcement, which Gray says the county doesn’t have the capacity or political will to do.
Don Dabiew, chairman of Franklin County, says they're in the same situation.
“We don’t have the infrastructure to enforce anything like that and we haven’t talked about doing that anyways, because the businesses have suffered a lot throughout this pandemic," says Dabiew.
Erie County, in western New York, did reinstate a mask mandate last month. Governor Kathy Hochul was recently asked about reinstating a statewide mandate, but she said enforcement is difficult for a lot of places.
“The localities, those who want to enforce this are doing it and we support them, but there’s also a reality that it’s almost impossible to enforce this kind of behavior among a population that just won't do it.”
Instead of mask mandates, lawmakers are focusing on expanding testing and access to vaccines. But convincing people who have been hesitant for months now to get vaccinated is proving extremely difficult.
Matt Simpson says he thinks people like him have a role to play in this moment. Simpson is a Republican state assemblyman representing Essex, Warren, and parts of Saratoga and Washington counties.
“I think elected officials– you know, I’ve been an assemblyman for a short period of time– people do look to us for guidance and leadership," says Simpson.
Simpson's colleague in the Assembly, Democrat Billy Jones has repeatedly spoken up about the importance of getting vaccinated, the North Country’s mostly Republican delegation, though, has been largely silent.
Congresswoman Elise Stefanik didn’t respond to repeated requests for an interview, but on social media she’s largely framed vaccines and masking in a negative context, criticizing state and federal mandates. State Senators Dan Stec, Patty Ritchie and Joe Griffo declined to be interviewed for this story.
New York's Republican Congressional delegation says it's New York's vaccine mandate for health care workers, not COVID itself or mask mandates, that are the real issue right now. On Thursday, Stefanik signed a letterurging Gov. Hochul to revoke the vaccine mandate for health care workers and reinstate hospitals' abilities to perform elective surgeries while they deal with COVID capacity issues.
Assemblyman Simpson says he’s been watching cases and hospitalization in his district spike in the last month. So he sent out a press release and posted on social media urging folks to get vaccinated. Simpson says he recently got his booster shot.
“These vaccines were a major breakthrough and it is a tool and it’s the best we have,” says Simpson.
Officials at Glens Falls Hospital applauded Simpson's messaging. "We would love for our regional elected officials to follow Assemblyman Matt Simpson’s lead and make a public statement in support of vaccination, and also in support of masking."
Across the North Country, there are still tens of thousands of people who aren’t vaccinated, exposing communities and health care systems to even more stress. Health officials expect the surge in COVID infections to continue or even worsen through the holidays.