NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — SUNY Purchase, a liberal arts college in Westchester, reinstated its mask mandate on Tuesday in an attempt to combat rising COVID-19 levels and other respiratory illness.
Purchase is finishing final exams for the fall semester this week and aims to “send the students home to their families also healthy and well,” according to the college’s president Milagros Peña.
The official case total in Westchester County is only 165, but that number is likely a severe undercount due the U.S.’ failure to implement a system to count at-home tests.
New York City warned of a “tridemic” facing the region on Friday as COVID, RSV and the flu spread at an alarming pace.
City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan recommended New Yorkers mask up in crowded public spaces, but stopped short of making masks mandatory.
The three respiratory viruses have led to a nationwide medicine shortage.
The spread of COVID has been exacerbated by low vaccine booster rates.
In New York City, 80% of residents have finished their initial series, but only half that amount have taken the booster. That statistic doesn’t account for how many have taken any booster at all and how many have taken the most recent bivalent vaccine that is more effective against recent strains of the virus.
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