Youth Sports, Halloween Driving Coronavirus Spike In Putnam

Lanning Taliaferro
Updated ·4 min read

PUTNAM COUNTY, NY — Casual community spread is causing Putnam County's rising coronavirus caseload, officials said Thursday as four new exposure alerts were issued.

In Putnam County:

  • If you worked at or visited The Home Depot, at 80 Independent Way, Brewster from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Nov. 7, you may have been exposed to the coronavirus. A member of the public who has tested positive was at the facility during this time.

  • If you worked at or visited Ministerio Internacional Campamento De Jehova, at 407 Route 6, Mahopac on Nov. 15 from 7:30 a.m. to 12 p.m., you may have been exposed

  • If you worked at or visited Mahopac Golf & Beach Club, at 601 North Lake Boulevard, Mahopac from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 12, from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 13 or from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 14 you may have been exposed.

  • If you worked at or visited ShopRite Supermarket, at 184 Route 52, Carmel from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 12, you may have been exposed.


Investigation and contact tracing have pinpointed Halloween as one major cause, said Deputy County Executive Thomas Feighery at a press conference Thursday, saying Putnam's active cases doubled six days later.

Another is youth sports.

"My biggest challenge right now is traveling sports teams," Putnam Health Commissioner Dr. Michael J. Nesheiwat said.

Feighery and Nesheiwat made the remarks during a news conference on Zoom with officials from Dutchess, Orange, Putnam and Ulster counties to talk about the rapidly rising positivity rates in the region.

Coronavirus rates are rising in the Hudson Valley (source: New York Health Department).
Coronavirus rates are rising in the Hudson Valley (source: New York Health Department).

Restrictions on gatherings, dining and schools were imposed on a long list of new micro-clusters in the Hudson Valley Thursday, including Newburgh, New Windsor, Middletown, Highland Falls in Orange County; Pearl River, West Haverstraw, Suffern and Stony Point in Rockland County; and New Rochelle, Ossining, Tarrytown, Yonkers and Peekskill in Westchester County.

Rockland County's case investigation and contact tracing program points to youth sports, parties and family events as the main drivers of the new cases, County Executive Ed Day said in a statement about the new yellow zones.

In the Thursday news conference, officials begged residents to remain vigilant in the coming weeks and curtail small social gatherings.

"In Pine Bush we had 20 people who tested positive from a house party," Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus said during the Zoom session.

A Halloween get-together by three families in Ulster led to 15 cases and affected an elementary school, a middle school, a high school and a college, said County Executive Pat Ryan.

The county officials had strong words about coronavirus denial and misinformation, such as not being a senior citizen means you're safe, or that masks don't work, or that since 8 out of 10 people who catch it have at most mild symptoms, it's no big deal.

"I had several deaths this week and two of them were in their 20s," Neuhaus said.

In reality the coronavirus is a huge problem for everyone, they said.

"It's really burdening our resources - first responders, hospital beds, nursing homes, funeral homes," Orange County Health Commissioner Dr. Irina Gelman said. "Those are issues that impact us community-wide."

Gelman also fact-checked the argument that it's no worse than the flu. Of those who catch the coronavirus, 80 percent have mild to no symptoms, 14 percent develop complications and 3-4 percent die. In flu season in the U.S.A., she said only 0.01 cases result in complications, 0.001 in death.

People need to filter out the emotions and the exhaustion, said Ryan, because while we might not feel the way we felt in the spring, "in terms of what the virus is doing it's the same."

"This is a critical juncture as we enter into the holidays — Thanksgiving followed by Hanukkah followed by Christmas," said Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro. "Just by being casual you run the risk of getting sick or getting someone else sick."

Feighery said Putnam's businesses are not the problem, though they will suffer if the virus continues its exponential spread. "The businesses, the schools — they've all been doing a phenomenal job keeping safe," he said.

This article originally appeared on the Southeast-Brewster Patch