acerbone@adirondackdailyenterprise.com SARANAC LAKE The Saranac Lake village board has declared today as a COVID-19 Memorial Day, a day to commemorate those who died during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. This follows a grassroots nationwide movement to make March 1 a national day of remembrance. It has been around a year since the pandemic first took hold in the U.S. as it spread around the globe, and in that time the virus has claimed the lives of more than 500,000 in this country alone. This huge loss of human life has led several activist groups to seek a specific day to collectively mourn the dead and reflect on the loss.
Feb 24, 2021 Mary Rumney Clark joined her late husband Richard Webster Clark in the presence of her Lord and Savior on Friday, Feb. 19, 2021, at the age of 83. She was born Mary Carolyn Rumney in Keeseville on Sept. 14, 1937, to Frank and May (Kerr) Rumney. Mary graduated as valedictorian of the Class of 1955, Keeseville Central School. After graduation she left home to continue her education at the Champlain Valley School of Nursing, earning a degree as a registered nurse. Mary devoted her life to caring for others. She was employed first by the Placid Memorial Hospital, then Uihlien nursing home and finally Essex County Public Health, where she retired from in 1997.
eizzo@adirondackdailyenterprise.com A recent winter storm delayed this week’s coronavirus vaccine shipments to Franklin and Essex counties. Both county health departments were prepared to set up “PODs” this week or points of distribution, essentially a vaccine clinic where staffers would administer the 200 vaccine doses each county was set to receive. Those vaccines were largely earmarked for essential workers, and those with underlying health issues, a newly eligible part of the population. “We expect to receive (the doses) but at present time do not have a tracking number so cannot hold a POD without the vaccine,” Franklin County Manager Donna Kissane wrote in an email.
Long Lake Town Supervisor Clay Arsenault gets the swab for the Covid-19 test. Photo: Town of Long Lake
Jan 13, 2021 The spike in COVID-19 cases here in the North Country continues, with daily new cases of COVID-19 dwarfing peak days in the spring. David Clauss, Chief Medical Officer of the Elizabethtown Community Hospital, spoke during a video briefing on Friday, Jan. 8, which included county health directors and medical staff from regional hospitals.
Clauss said we can’t treat our way out of the pandemic, and “we also are not going to be able to vaccinate our way out of this quickly enough to avoid significant tragedy. We have to prevent our way out of this pandemic with simple measures that we know.”
eizzo@adirondackdailyenterprise.com The workload facing local hospitals and county health departments is on track to becoming unsustainable. Health care officials are imploring residents to take precautions to curb the spread before that happens. In a virtual press conference on Friday, multiple doctors from University of Vermont Health Network hospitals and public health directors from around Clinton, Essex and Franklin counties warned that the local COVID-19 caseload was beginning to stress the operations of both hospitals and county health departments. This comes at a time when rural hospitals have already faced significant financial challenges. Before the pandemic, some North Country hospitals were merging and downsizing. Last spring, those financial challenges were compounded when hospitals were directed to cancel elective surgeries for several weeks, cutting off a vital revenue-generator for rural health care facilities that care for a relatively large number of patients