Aliya Schneider is reporting for Columbia-Greene Media the Hudson Youth Department is going fully virtual for the rest of 2020 as part of an effort to reassess the spread of COVID-19 in the city. “I guess we wanted to be as cautious as possible in moving forward and we don’t have all the tools that the school district and other organizations have to be able to monitor when somebody’s on quarantine or not on quarantine, so we just wanted to take a position that’s taking the safety of our youth and our staff and our community as priority,” Youth Director Nick Zachos said. National statistics show people of color and those experiencing poverty are most adversely affected by the virus, he said. “That’s a high percentage of the population that we serve,” Zachos said. The Youth Department's virtual program will begin the week of December 7, he said. Programming will have similar hours to the in-person schedules. In terms of budget savings, it’s too early to tell, but there may be some. The decision to move online will inevitably impact child care and was not made lightly, Zachos said. Read the full story at HudsonValley360 [dot] com.