Buffalo, NY (WBEN) - Numbers throughout New York State over the past week are giving many hope that efforts to mitigate the spread of Coronavirus are having a significant impact.
"You see the magical word… evidence of flattening," Dr. Brahm Segal, Chief of Infectious Diseases at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center too WBEN.
Segal told WBEN on Tuesday that the trend of flattening the curve is room for optimism, even if it is on a state-wide level, and it comes without the aid of medicine.
"The only explanation is personal responsibility, social distancing, doing the right thing," Segal said. "That tells us that if we don't do the right thing, if we don't continue with our practice of social distancing, this can be easily reversed."
Just because the curve is flattening doesn't mean it's time to get back to normal.
Segal told WBEN that flattening isn't necessarily what he's looking for when thinking about returning to normal life.
When would medical professionals feel comfortable seeing the return of large events in Western New York?
"I'm not even thinking that far ahead," Segal said. "What I would like to see, the next phase is not just flattening, but decreasing. When you have flattening, there are still new cases… what I would like to see is a decrease in new cases."
