Erie County officials gave the latest update regarding COVID-19 with their weekly briefing on Tuesday.
As of Jan. 2, Erie County had 1,541 new cases of COVID-19, with a positivity rate of 21.8%. The total number of cases over the last seven days in the county is sitting at 14,347. In total, Erie County has a confirmed COVID-19 case number of 157,584.
"That seems to be standard, as to what we're seeing in New York State," said Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz on Tuesday. "I've been seeing positivity rates in other parts of the country that are coming in at 33%-40%. So we've got COVID everywhere in the country.
Poloncarz mentions that Erie County is experiencing its worst rate of positive COVID-19 cases in the last seven days, with approximately 1.5% of all county residents catching a new case of the virus.
When compared to earlier parts of the pandemic, this seven-day stretch far surpasses what was seen from March of 2020. From the start of the pandemic through October of 2020, Erie County had a little more than 12,000 cases combined throughout all of Erie County. Last winter, there was a bump in the cases again that saw 12,000 new COVID-19 cases in roughly 6-8 weeks.
"It is ridiculous how many people are catching COVID," Poloncarz said. "This is a huge problem nationwide, but when you made a comparison of the last 12,000 cases and compared it to other parts of the pandemic where we had 12,000 cases, there is no comparison. What we're dealing with now is the worst when it pertains to the number of individuals that are catching COVID."
As Poloncarz explained on Tuesday, cases in the county increased by 160% from the previous week, while the county also had a record total of tests reported in a week, about 67,200 from Sunday, Dec. 26 through Saturday, Jan. 1.
In addition, Poloncarz says the 20-39-year-old age group continue to drive the surge, accounting for 43% of all cases in Erie County. Meanwhile, the 30-39-year-old age group accounted for the highest seven-day case rate per-100,000 people.
As for hospitalization numbers in the county, Poloncarz says COVID-19 patients have increased around 50% over the last 10 days, which is driving up hospital capacity once again.
However, one thing that the county has been pleased to see is ICU numbers have not been rising at the same percentage as overall hospitalizations.
With COVID-19 numbers continuing to rise everywhere in our county, region and the country, Poloncarz urged people everywhere the best thing they can do to prepare themselves is to get vaccinated and get boostered for COVID-19.
"I think it's exceptionally important now with so much transmission in our community that people get out and get vaccinated, if they haven't," Poloncarz said.
You can listen to Tuesday's entire COVID-19 briefing with Poloncarz and Dr. Burstein below:
