Mayor Barlow Provides View On Mask Mandate During Governor Hochul’s COVID-19 Briefing

OSWEGO – Governor Kathy Hochul today held a COVID-19 briefing and was joined virtually by Oswego Mayor Billy Barlow to discuss the mask mandate.

Hochul began the briefing by talking about the statewide mask mandate and the objective of protecting the health of New Yorkers and the health of the economy.

“I’m going to be assessing our numbers and hopefully progress that has been made by January 15th and the whole purpose of this, protect individual’s lives, particularly during what we’re experiencing right now, which is a holiday surge,” Hochul said.

Looking at the state’s COVID-19 numbers, she said the statewide average has increased by 58% since Thanksgiving, and hospitalizations are up 70% since Thanksgiving.

“The vaccinations – This has always been our ticket out,” Hochul said. “If people got vaccinated, got boosted, did the right thing, we would not be having these conversations. In fact, if 100% of New Yorkers had done this, I’m not even sure I’d be having to give COVID updates because this would be in the rear view mirror.”

She further discussed the impact of the pandemic on businesses and children.

“If [businesses] do not want to have a vaccine requirement, then simply ask people to wear a mask and you can stay open,” Hochul said. “That’s what this is about. Keeping you open, not having the devastating effect on our economy that we experienced over the past 20 some months.”

Hochul then invited business owners and elected officials, including Mayor Billy Barlow, to speak their thoughts.

“I do think the mask mandate does strike a fair balance as you described between protecting our citizens and allowing businesses to safely stay open and operate successfully,” Barlow said. “Here in Central New York and in the Oswego county, city of Oswego, we’re in a bit of a severe situation that we have not been in since the pandemic started, we have regional hospitals in Syracuse becoming at capacity. We even now have community hospitals reaching capacity levels. And that was really the primary fight from the get-go against COVID, is to not overwhelm the local healthcare system and unfortunately, that is what is happening here in Central New York. So your mask mandate and message today is entirely appropriate at this time and will certainly help us slow the spread here in Oswego County.”

Barlow also talked about his concern of the surge of cases and the new strain of the virus following the holiday season.

Following Barlow’s remarks, various speakers shared their views. Hochul then discussed an executive order expanding the healthcare workforce, hospital capacity, vaccines during the holiday season, booster shots, and the Omicron strain. Hochul finished the update and answered questions.

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