BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) – Erie County officials are alarmed after the county reported a five percent coronavirus positivity rate on Tuesday.
"Not good at all," Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said Wednesday.
There were 3,320 people tested on Tuesday in Erie County.
167 people tested positive for the virus. Western New York, which also includes Niagara, Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, and Allegany Counties, had a positive test rate of 3.4 percent with 207 new cases of COVID-19.
Eleven people have died since October 26. Poloncarz said that all but one of the new deaths were people above the age of 70.
The new cases are troubling for county officials because there is not a cluster of coronavirus. Poloncarz said the new cases are coming from schools, colleges, out-of-state travelers, sports teams, and within households.
"Just in October we had this explosion of number of cases that we have seen in schools," Erie County Health Commissioner Gale Burstein said. "It's not just the students who are identifying as positive. We're seeing more than a third of the cases among school staff. You might think it's not much but when you think of the makeup of a school, the vast majority of people in that building are students. A third of cases being staff is a very high proportion of people who are staffed in the schools."
In the first few month of school, Burstein said there were only about ten cases of coronavirus. Since October, though, the cases are around 250.
Burstein warns that the numbers will continue to rise.
"All the public health experts have been telling us to expect pretty much doom and gloom with COVID-19 this winter," Burstein said. "We do expect according to our public health officials to see higher numbers this winter because people are doing more indoors. We can't take advantage of the outdoors…People are experiencing prevention fatigue and not masking as much and participating in large gatherings, small gatherings, and any gatherings."
"It's going to be a difficult winter," Burstein said.
