Jul 2

Jul 2 Montgomery County Executive Matt Ossenfort says Keymark helpful in addressing COVID outbreak, but could have taken more precautions By Luke Perry

Keymark Corporation in Fonda has at least 77 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Over 500 of their 681 employees have been tested. Montgomery County is still awaiting results from over 100 of these tests.

Just 8 of the 77 infected employees live in Montgomery County, causing spikes elsewhere, mostly in Oneida County.

Montgomery County Executive Matt Ossenfort told Talk of the Town (WUTQ in Utica) that “the majority of these cases are from the city of Utica,” where people “live together, work together, commute together, socialize together.” Under these circumstances, “a small spark can create a fire and that’s what happened here.”

Ossenfort said “we’re pretty lucky with the way this has been handled and the work has been done, and the cooperation from the business. So to get where we are now, compared to where we were a couple of weeks ago, I think we’re in a really good spot.” The first case at Keymark was detected on June 16.

Ossenfort believes the process has been “encouraging,” as county officials deal with these types of COVID outbreaks “for at least another six months.” This is “the type of work that needs to happen.” Once a cluster emerges, testing, tracing, and isolation must result quickly.

There was “no evidence of any problems at the plant that would be a direct cause of this,” Ossenfort said. “All the deep cleaning procedures were in place and they’ll continue to do that.” Keymark hopes to resume normal production shortly.

Ossenfort expressed gratitude to the “longtime Montgomery County manufacturer” for the outbreak “being taken seriously and the fact there were the procedures in place that needed to be there.”

Ossenfort also said “there were some precautions taken, but was it as strong as it possible could have been? My guess is ‘no.’” Keymark “could have done more.”

There are still some unanswered questions. For instance, Ossenfort did not know if employees routinely wear masks while on site.

Ossenfort noted that COVID has been relatively limited in Montgomery County, averaging about one new confirmed case per day, and believes the outbreak was mostly the product of employees working closely together, and commuting and socializing together.

“The good news that I heard from the department of health was there weren’t any clear, obvious issues at that that plant that were being negligent,” Ossenfort said. “That would be a real problem that needs to be addressed.”

Luke Perry (@PolSciLukePerry) is Professor of Government at Utica College