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March 3, 2021
One year from the day the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Westchester County, clergy, poets, politicians and musicians gathered in the rotunda of the Michaelian Office Building in White Plains to honor the more than 2,100 Westchester residents that have died in the year since. County Executive George Latimer led the service that included prayers from representatives of the three major faiths, poetry readings and music played by a string quartet from White Plains High School.
At exactly noon, flags around the county were lowered to half-staff and church bells rang out to mark the occasion.
On display were the ribbons placed in horror of COVID victims, first at a site at the Lenoir Nature Preserve overlooking the Hudson in Yonkers, and during the winter months at a display in the County Office Building in White Plains. They will be returned to the Lenoir Preserve when spring returns.
5:40
Westchester County Executive George Latimer hosted a COVID-19 commemoration Wednesday, marking one year since the county’s first confirmed case. New Rochelle became the epicenter of the virus in New York early in the pandemic.
Westchester Deputy County Executive Ken Jenkins recalled March 3, 2020.
“The county executive, George, called at 10 minutes to 8 on the 3rd, and it’s, it was unusual because we do a lot of texting because that’s the world we live in, but for him to call that early in the morning, I thought something must be wrong, and the county executive said that we had our first case here in Westchester County,” Jenkins says. “Five minutes after 8, the mayor of New Rochelle Noam Bramson called and was validating that information, and then we’ve been all working through this particular scenario together.”
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With COVID-19 deaths rising, Westchester County is preparing for the worst.
The county is building long-term space in Valhalla to store two refrigerated trailers that could serve as morgues. The site is a Westchester-owned field adjacent to the county Labs and Research facility on the Grasslands campus.
The trailers could be needed if local funeral parlors are again overwhelmed by the number of dead, as they were during the coronavirus first wave in the spring.