BUFFALO, N.Y. — On Tuesday, Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein provided data regarding COVID-19 cases in area nursing homes in a letter to the Erie County Legislature.
According to the letter, four area nursing homes, for the week ending on January 2, have COVID-19 positivity rates between 5 percent and 10 percent.
No nursing homes in Erie County have a rate higher than 10 percent, and nursing homes with rates below 5 percent weren't included in the report.
Two Elderwood facilities are included on the list, and all four facilities are listed as having an "unknown" suspected source of infection.
- Elderwood at Hamburg, which has 166 beds, has 14 positive tests, resulting in a positivity rate of 8.4 percent.
- Elderwood at Lancaster, which has 96 beds, has nine positive tests, resulting in a positivity rate of 9.4 percent.
- Greenfield Health & Rehab Center, which has 160 beds, has nine positive tests, resulting in a positivity rate of 5.6 percent.
- Schofield Residence in Kenmore, which has 120 beds, has seven positive tests, resulting in a positivity rate of 5.8 percent.
Burstein said in the letter that the county plans to release this information weekly. However, this data comes with a few caveats, as Burstein puts it.
The data the Erie County Department of Health receives comes from multiple sources, and different sources report this information on different days.
Some of the data comes from the NYS Health Electronic Response Data System (HERDS), some comes from surveillance data case reports, and sometimes, the New York State Department of Health provides information about its investigations.
Additionally, the data can include "persistent positives" - people who test positive multiple times after their first positive test. Some people, including those who are elderly and might have compromised immune systems, can have positive test results for an extended amount of time, Burstein wrote.
Particularly the HERDS data does not clarify if test results are new positives or someone who was tested again after already testing positive before.
Additionally, the data is just focused on Erie County nursing homes: not everyone in these nursing homes are Erie County residents, and some Erie County residents might be in nursing homes outside the county.
The Legislature requested nursing home data be reported in this fashion in a meeting two months ago.
