NEW YORK — During a conference call with reporters Friday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that Western New York's COVID-19 positivity rate was 1.3% percent as of Thursday.
Governor Cuomo said he is not happy with that rate. "We have to do better in Western New York," he said.
According to the New York State COVID-19 tracker, the Western New York region has the second-highest positivity rate in the state next to the Mid-Hudson Valley.
New York State officials said when a region's positivity rate gets to 1.4% that is when they start to worry. Currently, Western New York's rolling seven- day average is 1.2%.
"We are doing OK in Western New York," according to Dr. Thomas Russo, the University at Buffalo's chief of infectious diseases.
"We've been relatively steady over the last several weeks. We were doing our best during early and middle August, and we had a sort of steady rise on daily averages doubling since that time."
In terms of hospitalizations, 55 people are currently hospitalized marking the fourth straight day of more than 50 people in the hospital.
"What's been a bit more concerning is total hospitalizations, and the hospitalization rate has also increased during this time period where we've almost doubled the number of people in hospitals with COVID-19," Dr. Russo said.
"Having said that though, we have sort of steadied the ship the last several weeks we've been pretty stable but obviously as we move into the cooler weather with more indoor activity, since we have a smoldering amount of COVID activity here in Western New York, we need to be careful to make sure that the situation doesn't flare up and get out of control."
