BUFFALO (WBEN) - More good news from Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz and Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein during their weekly COVID-19 update, as COVID-19 numbers continue to decline.
As of March 7, the seven-day positivity rate in the county stands at 3.5%, representing another consecutive week of improvement. The number of confirmed cases dropped by 9%, while the county also saw an 8% decrease in testing.
"We have seen the seven-day positivity rate kind of level off," said Poloncarz. "We've had some days in the two's and some other days in the high three's, so the positivity rate has dropped from what it was a month ago, but it's pretty much leveled off as it was the last few weeks."
However, there are some very encouraging signs in terms of hospitalizations.
As for vaccination data, 19.8% of Erie County residents have received a first dose of the vaccine (24.2% of all adults), and 9.6% have received a second dose (13.5% of all adults). The Erie County Department of Health is currently slated to receive 3,710 doses from the state for the next week of distribution.
Starting next week, every vaccine site will be open to all eligible residents. However, pharmacies will only be open school staff and residents 60 years and older. On March 17, eligibility will expand to public-facing nonprofit employees, public employees, essential workers, and building workers.
Poloncarz again reiterated that the pandemic is not yet over even though numbers continue to trend in the right direction.
"There were 1,608 new confirmed cases, these are not repeats, these are new confirmed cases of COVID-19 for the week ending March 6," said Poloncarz. "There are still people getting sick with COVID-19, and as I talked about last week, there are people who haven't even gotten sick yet who will get sick and probably die from COVID-19."
