BUFFALO (WBEN) - Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz and Monroe County Executive Adam Bello held a joint press briefing Monday afternoon to discuss rising COVID numbers in Western New York and the Finger Lakes regions.
"We are in a fourth spike," said Poloncarz. "There is no doubt about it."
There were 714 new cases reported in Erie County on November 12, and though Poloncarz noted the volume of positive cases has dropped in the past two days, he said the positivity rate is alarmingly high.
"While we had 369 cases (Sunday), the positivity rate was 9.7%, which is the highest it's been in many many months," said Poloncarz. "We are over 300 new cases per 100,000 residents, approximately 350 for the last seven days, and this unfortunately also is the same type of trajectory we are seeing with our hospitalizations."
Poloncarz said they are not interested in implementing masking mandates and other regulations, but he emphasized the importance of masking indoors when you cannot socially distance.
"We are yet again seeing an increase in infection rates and hospitalization rates due to a number of causes," said Bello. "The return to school, the new college semester, colder weather, more indoor gatherings, and of course, the delta variant. These increases are a major concern, and we do not want a repeat of last year when we saw continued increases, strains on our hospital systems, and restrictions imposed by the State of New York.
"Now is the time to to double down on what we know works and bring down our cases numbers and corresponding hospitalizations," Bello continued. "I'm asking our residents to return to vigilance, and here's how: First and foremost, get vaccinated - this is without questions the most important thing each of us can do to end this pandemic...the next most important step we can all take is to wear a mask in public indoor locations...even if you're vaccinated, masking can help stop the spread of infections as an important mitigation tool that has been proven effective."
