BUFFALO, N.Y. — On Thursday, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz gave a press conference discussing the state of COVID-19 in Erie County.
Erie County says there were 852 new COVID-19 cases reported for January 6th.
Poloncarz said in the conference that "We [Erie County] are going in the wrong direction." He added that the county is starting to see cases as a result of New Year's Eve parties.
Currently, the county has seen 44,191 cases so far, and 1,297 deaths from the virus.
The county executive said that Erie County is seeing a lot of cases in rural and suburban areas.
As of the week ending in January 2, rural communities had the highest rates in the county. Lawtons, Holland, West Falls, Colden, Marilla, Derby, and Akron all had COVID-19 positivity rates between 11 and 16 percent.
The more suburban areas of Alden, Cheektowaga (zip codes 14227 and 14225), Tonawanda, Hamburg (Lake View), and Elma all had rates between 10 percent and 11 percent.
Poloncarz added that the county saw an average of about 10 COVID-19 deaths a day in December.
Overall, 385 Erie County residents died in December, according to the county. December was the worst month for deaths in the county since April, when 286 people died from the virus.
The county executive also said that the increase in deaths is a result of an increase in cases, which will ultimately increase hospitalizations and deaths.
Additionally, Erie County Commissioner of Health Dr. Gale Burstein said that the county is concerned about the new strain of COVID-19 in New York State.
"We are all concerned about getting that variant of COVID-19 into our community," Burstein said, adding the the county is working with the University at Buffalo, and UB will do genetic sequencing on most recent positive test specimens to try and identify variants.
She emphasized that vaccination will be important in combatting this new strain, as it is believe the vaccine will also be preventative for this strain.