BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) – Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said that despite the county health department's changing the criteria of who they test, it does not mean that the positive rates will go up.
The county this week said they will begin testing only those who are under quarantined due to close contact with somebody who has tested positive or those who display symptoms of the virus. The new testing criteria took effect on Thursday.
"The argument that we are going to have higher positives because we are testing those who are symptomatic or those that are close contacts is false because that's what we've been doing all along," Poloncarz said. "We've been averaging 1,300 tests a week for the county but we've been doing, as a community, 30,000 or more on average per week or high (20,000).
There's all these other agencies out there. It's not just Erie County that does the testing. It's a false narrative."
County officials remain concerned about the rising coronavirus cases in Erie County and the risk of future shutdowns. There were 534 new cases confirmed in Erie County on Wednesday, which represented 8.3 percent of those who were tested. There are 16,660 people in Erie County who have contracted coronavirus that officials can confirm.
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