The experience of Onondaga County during the pandemic is now part of the Congressional Record. County Executive Ryan McMahon provided lawmakers with a boots-on-the-ground insight during a congressional hearing Wednesday.
McMahon, in an https://youtu.be/0AILYwkHdfw?t=2295">opening statement, looked back at how the pandemic, that started almost a year ago, socked county government; from dealing with a shortage of items like PPE and testing kits, to creating a massive testing system with the help of local universities and schools to make in-person learning safe, and then to trying to vaccinate a public with too little of a supply of vaccine. Interwoven through all of this is how federal help was nowhere to be found to help pay the bills. Lawmakers asked, would it be better if funds from FEMA or the CDC went straight to local governments instead of going to the states? That idea was fine by McMahon.
“We have great relationships with our state partners, but certainly, there are times where funding goes to the states and it doesn’t flow back to local governments," McMahon said.
And he emphasized that with all the concern about getting the vaccine to underserved communities, counties or other local governments across the country are best equipped to do it.
"We are the ones who have the existing infrastructure that we can build off of,” McMahon said. “We have the relationships. These are our clients that we work with day in, day out, in other departments. At the local level is the best way and best strategy to get to our hard-to-reach communities."
McMahon also provided federal lawmakers with a first-hand template for how to open schools during the pandemic. He testified that testing teachers before school started, and continuing asymptomatic testing of students, has been key to keeping the coronavirus from spreading in school buildings.
“Even though we were experiencing surges in the community, our positivity rates in the schools is about 0.2%, trending down,” McMahon said. “We believe testing is the tool to keep schools open, to give the data to the public, so the public is more comfortable doing more in-person learning.”
McMahon was invited to speak at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing about the pandemic, by Rep. John Katko (R-Camillus), the committee’s ranking Republican.
