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Will increased testing impact the reopening strategy?

2 On Your Side's Dave McKinley traveled to a suburb of Rochester on Monday to ask Governor Cuomo how testing will impact reopening the state, region by region.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Governor Andrew Cuomo came to the Rochester suburb of Chili on Monday.

As part of the Fingers Lakes region, Chili and Rochester are in an area further along in meeting the criteria being used to gauge whether a region can re-open.

"So far the data's been very positive," Cuomo said.

Cuomo chose his former Lieutenant Governor, Bob Duffy, to head this area's regional panel to help guide decisions on re-opening.

But there's one criterion the governor mentioned, which might make it seem that even a place faring better may still be a way off from re-opening; especially as testing increases, which could increase the number of positive cases found.

"You can't have more than 15 cases or five new deaths on a three-day rolling average," Cuomo said.

2 On Your Side's Dave McKinley asked if that is reasonable to expect in the short-term.

"The testing is gonna ramp up that may drive some of the numbers up occasionally but I'm gonna go back to what I said before, the way the systems are working now has been very positive," Duffy said.

Some counties in our region, such as the Finger Lakes counties of Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming counties may hit those numbers before counties with larger metropolitan areas. This could cause concern as the governor has expressed concerns about people driving to areas with open businesses.

However, Duffy says this is something that will be taken into consideration as they move forward. 

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