BUFFALO, N.Y. — A milestone was reached Wednesday in the WNY Region's on-going battle against the coronavirus.
Results from Wednesday show the region's rate of positive cases dropped below the one percent mark; the lowest recorded for the five counties since the pandemic began.
The WNY region consists of Erie, Niagara, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua and Allegany counties.
Out of the 5,556 tests completed for the day, 29 of them had positive results. That number of tests is the third most for the region since the virus outbreak. The rolling average of the percent positive for the region is now one percent.
Daily hospitalizations increased slightly Wednesday, up from 28 to 34. That previous day's total was an all-time low for the region.
Erie County also fell below one percent in terms of percent-positive tests for Wednesday, according to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.
On Wednesday, the Erie County Department of Health received 3,898 COVID-19 diagnostic tests, and of those tests, 23 came back positive. This means there was a daily percent-positive rate of 0.6 percent.
Erie County has now had 8,304 identified cases of coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.