Government workers across Onondaga County enlist in a citizen army to hunt Covid-19
Updated Dec 16, 2020;
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She holds a swab in her hand as she waits.
People begin to trickle into the courtroom at the Lysander Town Hall. Have you done this before, she asks. I’ll swirl five times in the right nostril and then five times in the left. That’s it. All done. No news is good news.
She gives this speech more than 100 times this day, while swabbing hundreds of nostrils for rapid Covid-19 tests.
Leatherland is not a nurse. In normal times, she answers the phones for Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon. But with 100 other county employees, she’s part of military-scale Covid-19 mass testing operation. City firefighters, Syracuse schools Promise Zone workers and Syracuse University students have also pitched in. By last week, the county had done 24,000 rapid tests in a month’s time.
By MARNIE EISENSTADT | syracuse.com | Published: December 16, 2020
Stars and Stripes is making stories on the coronavirus pandemic available free of charge. See other free reports here. Sign up for our daily coronavirus newsletter here. Please support our journalism with a subscription. LYSANDER, N.Y. (Tribune News Service) Tina Leatherland wears a mask, a face shield, two pairs of gloves and a plastic gown over her jeans and T-shirt. She holds a swab in her hand as she waits. People begin to trickle into the courtroom at the Lysander Town Hall. Have you done this before, she asks. I’ll swirl five times in the right nostril and then five times in the left. That’s it. All done. No news is good news.