Wednesday, April 8th
If you have an immediate need, call (607) 288-3252
As always, community members looking for more information on local health resources and resources related to COVID-19 can contact 2-1-1 by calling 1-877-211-8667 or visiting 211tompkins.org
Mutual Aid Tompkins Facebook Page
Mutual Aid Tompkins Facebook Group
Mutual Aid Tompkins Immediate Needs Facebook Group
Mutual Aid Tompkins Food Systems Facebook Group
Mutual Aid Tompkins Community Form
Mutual Aid Tompkins Community Resource Folder
Donate
We are neighbors concerned about our communities and helping to make sure those most vulnerable and affected by COVID-19 get the support they need. We are volunteer run, with no paid staff, and our aid comes directly from the community. We have created a PayPal & Venmo account and the money donated is going directly to people who have made requests through our immediate needs page. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation through our fundraiser that is in partnership with Tompkins County Worker's Center, You can also make donations through PayPal here and our Venmo here. Thank you!
Quarantine Space
Mutual Aid Tompkins is compiling a list of available spaces for people who need to quarantine and are unable to do so at home.
Please get in touch if you have a rental that is currently empty, an Airbnb, a second home, an RV, etc., where someone could quarantine for ~2 weeks.
You can fill out this google form: https://forms.gle/QBfHvdnH9WX18s1S6
or email rsibner1@gmail.com
Local
The Tompkins County Health Department says the sampling site will be closed Thursday and Friday, April 9 and 10, due to forecast inclement weather with heavy winds. They will be open Saturday, April 11, 10am-3pm to make up for the closure. (14850.com).
Ithaca Medical Staff to NYC - Hundreds spaced themselves out to cheer along the route of the two buses of medical staff that departed from Ithaca this morning to help in hard-hit hospitals of NYC for the next month. To steal from Mayor Myrick’s Facebook post, Two busloads of doctors and nurses left Ithaca this morning for hospitals in NYC. There are no words that can do justice to their bravery and selflessness. We were there to see them off. And we will be here to welcome them all home to Ithaca.” Article with photos.
See the latest data in the Tompkins County Tracker. Tompkins County currently has 105 positive cases, 5 hospitalizations, and 73 recoveries out of 2,246 total tests.
Help Resources
Tompkins County Health Department continues to update their information, resources, and FAQ page. Follow them on on Facebook @TompkinsPublicHealth or @TCNYGov and on Twitter @TompkinsHealth and @TompkinsToday
TCAT will extend no-fare policy to Sat., May 23
TCAT's no-fare policy that went into effect last month to reduce any potential for coronavirus contagion between drivers and riders will be extended to Sat., May 23, which marks the end of the transit agency's spring service period.
As another precaution, TCAT is asking people to ride the bus only if necessary; if they are essential workers or if they need to travel to pick up life-sustaining basics, such as food and medicine. To promote social distancing, each bus has a 20-rider limit and, while in transit, riders are asked to sit as far apart as possible.
Due to lower demand and to provide more flexible schedules for bus operators, TCAT adjusted its spring service twice last month to provide what is now about 65 percent of normal service. See details here. In early March, TCAT implemented precautions to include stepped up efforts at disinfecting buses and facilities used by employees and riders.
Click here for FAQs, which includes links to helpful resources regarding the pandemic.
Activities & Events
Ithaca Festival has been delayed from May until August 27-30. Festival organizers believe the new date “will ideally provide a safer and healthier time for [Ithaca] to celebrate.”
Tompkins County Public Library is pleased to invite the public to “Social Solidarity Haiku,” an online writing workshop via Zoom, Tuesday, April 21 from 4:00 to 5:30 pm.
With this free online writing workshop for all ages, Tompkins County Poet Laureate Melissa Tuckey has a vision: to raise voices in solidarity with the essential workers on the front lines in our community during this crisis. Melissa will share examples of haiku and discuss how the form works, and participants will have the opportunity to practice writing haiku. Strategies for getting the poems into the world will also be shared. Haiku is a Japanese form hundreds of years old with roots in Buddhism. It's a democratic art form that anyone can master.
This free workshop is open to all ages.
The workshop will be offered via ZOOM. Register online at: www.tcpl.org/events/social-solidarity-haiku-writing-workshop-zoom. Once registered, participants will receive an email with details on how to access the workshop.
Tompkins County Poet Laureate Melissa Tuckey is author of Tenuous Chapel, a book of poems selected by Charles Simic for the ABZ First Book Award and Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology, published by University of Georgia Press, 2018. She’s a literary activist and co-founder of Split This Rock, a national poetry organization dedicated to lifting up culturally and stylistically diverse poetry of provocation and witness.
Tuckey’s honors include a winter fellowship at Fine Arts Center in Provincetown and fellowships from Black Earth Institute, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Ohio Arts Council, and Blue Mountain Center. She holds an MA and MFA in creative writing, and has taught creative writing workshops in a wide variety of settings, including George Mason University, Manhattanville University, DC Writers Corps, Downtown Writers Center in Syracuse, and the Community School of Arts and Music, and the Tompkins County jail.
Read more at her website, melissatuckey.net.
For more information about this and other programming at TCPL, contact Information and Learning Services at tvadakin@tcpl.org.
State
Governor Cuomo’s daily briefing was not available on Facebook Live this afternoon. For anyone that wasn’t able to watch, it was made available on Youtube.
Recent Updates:
1. New York seeks private sector partners to bring rapid COVID-19 testing to scale and accelerate testing capacity. Businesses interested in working with the state to manufacture these rapid tests on a large scale should contact Empire State Development at 212-803-3100 or COVID19supplies@esd.ny.gov.
2. Student loan borrowers experiencing financial hardship due to COVID-19 can obtain relief for loans not covered by the CARES Act. Available relief includes 90 days of deferred monthly payments, waived late fees, no negative reporting to credit agencies and enrolling eligible borrowers in available long-term assistance programs. New York student loan borrowers should visit the Department of Financial Services' website for more information about available student loan relief.
3. The State Department of Health has developed a test to detect antibodies to the COVID-19 infection in an individual's blood. This test is an important step towards determining whether New Yorkers are developing immunity and when they could potentially return to work or school.
4. "Go Paper" campaign to raise awareness about Coronavirus protocols in your community. Starting this week, the online grocer FreshDirect will include a paper flyer with their deliveries that reminds New Yorkers to stay home. Any delivery service (or individual) can print the flyer and include in deliveries to spread this crucial message. To print out and distribute the flyer in your community, visit: https://www.ny.gov/coronavirus-community-handout
5. In order to restart the economy, we need a federal stimulus bill that actually understands the state's needs. I issued a letter to New York's Congressional Delegation outlining the state's needs in the next federal COVID-19 legislation. The previous COVID-19 stimulus bills failed to adequately address New York's COVID-related revenue losses.
Tonight's "Deep Breath Moment": The public library in Levittown, New York, is using their 3D printers to make face shields and PPE for Nassau University Medical Center. It's inspiring to see communities help in innovative ways.
Releasing Aging People From People: Since the outbreak of COVID-19, 36 incarcerated people and 201 staff in New York State prisons have tested positive for the virus. Positive tests have occurred in at least 10 of the state’s 52 facilities. Three people in New York State prisons--2 incarcerated people and 1 staff person--with COVID-19 have died. Despite calls from advocates, attorneys, family members of people in prison, public health experts, Members of Congress, district attorneys and philanthropists for the state to release people from prison in response to the virus, the Governor has yet to issue a single clemency since the pandemic began. There are 10,239 older adults (aged 50 and older) incarcerated in New York State prisons.
We know that this issue is not only affecting incarcerated people in New York, but also others across the nation. The time is now to create change!
Here are some ways you can get involved:
2. Wednesday, April 8th, 7pm EST: #ClemencyCoast2Coast, a virtual Town Hall with advocates from New York and California as we strategize to join forces to get more of our people home! (Flyer attached)
RSVP HERE
National
Map: Tracking the Spread of the Coronavirus in the U.S.
Trump threatens to suspend funding of the World Health Organization.
