BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) – Erie County is no longer disclosing the positive test rate in the community due to a lack of information from New York State, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said Tuesday.
"For most of this time we were getting accurate numbers in terms of the total number of individuals who were getting tested and the positives associated with it," Poloncarz said. "We get the negatives and the positives.
Unfortunately, as it appears in the last month, we have not received any more of the negative reports from New York State with regards to pool testing that's being done on SUNY campuses."
Poloncarz said the lack of information from the state may mean there have been as many as 10,000 tests not counted.
Because of the issue, Erie County is now measuring the spread in terms of the new cases over the last seven days per 100,000 residents, a standard used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC designates a community as a "high risk" if they have more than 100 cases per 100,000 residents over 7 days. Erie County reported an increase of 450 new cases from the previous week. The new metric went from 169 to 218 per 100,000 residents.
"We are still in the very high risk transmission numbers," Poloncarz said. "Unfortunately, because we're not getting from New York State, and we don't know why New York State is not providing it to us, but we're not getting the negatives. We don't know how many tests are being performed at the pool sites. We do know the positives."
