BUFFALO (WBEN) - As of Thursday afternoon, the time Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz and Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein held a press conference to update the public on coronavirus, there are still no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the county.
UPDATE pic.twitter.com/6OfYqgfwkw
— Mark Poloncarz (@markpoloncarz) March 12, 2020
"It's very, very contagious," said Burstein. "Fortunately, the good news is that most people will not become symptomatic - about 80% of the people do not have symptoms - however, there is a significant proportion, about 15%-20%, that do develop severe symptoms. That's not across the board; it's mostly our elderly - people 60 and up, and people with other healthcare conditions, and smokers.
"Also, the fatality rate is estimated to be anywhere between 2%-3%," she continued. "We know that we don't have good figures of our case fatality rate right now in the United States because, fortunately, we haven't had that much experience with it, but hopefully overall as the year progresses we'll have more date, and we'll be able to make more accurate calculations for our case fatality rate in the United States."
Of course, both St. Patrick's Day Parades in Buffalo have been canceled this weekend, and Poloncarz shared the growing list of local events that have now been canceled as a precautionary measure.
Current cancellations pic.twitter.com/QaTEqWr1S2
— Mark Poloncarz (@markpoloncarz) March 12, 2020Later on in the afternoon, Shea's also announced that they will be canceling all remaining performances of Hello, Dolly!
After Governor Cuomo announced the ban on events with 500 or more people beginning Friday at 5 p.m., Erie County recommends that all events with more than 250 people or more should be canceled, and they add that people should seriously avoid attending events with more than 50 people, especially those over the age of 60 or those who are at most risk.
Although there are still no confirmed cases in Erie County, Poloncarz believes it's possible, maybe even likely that the virus is somewhere undetected in the county.
"We're going under the assumption, based upon the spread that we've seen across the country, that there are individuals in this community that have it," said Poloncarz. "We know there's individuals in Southern Ontario and the Toronto area that have it, so we're doing everything possible to ensure that we're adequately prepared and that we do identify that case number-one...but to ensure that when the cases are identified, we're keeping the total amount low..."
