BUFFALO, N.Y. — Erie County is staying in Phase 1 for now. Phase 1 is the mask mandate.
Erie County leaders announced last month that they would reassess the situation based on the data on Dec. 13. With cases going down, and the positivity rate and cases per 100,000 in the past week going down, Erie County will not be moving on to Phase 2 at this point. Phase 2 would include a vaccine mandate to go certain places like what they have been doing for a while in New York City.
Additionally, there is also a statewide mask mandate that just started this week. The Erie County executive spoke about the mask mandate on Tuesday and its impact on the number of COVID-19 cases in Erie County.
"We believe the mask mandate made a difference in Erie County to help us reduce our numbers, especially as compared on the what would be considered the per capita basis, the positivity rates, as well as the 100,000 average population over seven days compared to the rest of Western New York. Masks work in our opinion," said Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.
The numbers have gone in the right direction in Erie County in the past week. There are fewer new cases and hospitalizations have stabilized. There are currently 522 patients with COVID-19 in the hospital in Western New York. The positivity rates are going down in all age groups except for people under 18. And the 30 to 39-year-old age group is the one with the highest case total.
The county says mask compliance is high in Erie County, so 2 On Your Side asked the Erie County Commissioner of Health where the spread is happening.
"According to our contact tracers, as the county executive mentioned, we are seeing transmission within households," said Erie County Commissioner of Health Dr. Gale Burstein. "Households are very high risk of transmission, and that's why our contract tracers really try to target the households for their case investigations and making sure that everybody knows what they need to do to stay safe in the household where there's been a case of COVID-19. We're also seeing a lot of spread in social gatherings. People gathering in their house. Small parties or large parties. People gathering starting at bars and hanging out together and maybe going to a friend's house."
Burstein says mask wearing or having a vaccine requirement for your guests can help. She also says smaller is safer.
Burstein says we don't want to see another surge in cases like we did after Thanksgiving. Erie County has the lowest positivity rate in the Western New York region at 8.5-percent.
Also, the county says around 25-percent of adults 18 and up have received their booster.
"It's not where we want to be," Poloncarz said. "We know the booster is the key, especially with Omicron it seems to offer tremendous protection for Delta and Omicron. So if you have not gotten your booster, you should get your booster. Remember, you can still catch COVID even if you're fully vaccinated. The vaccine protects you. If you're boosted it really protects you is what the data shows, especially coming out of Europe."
There are vaccine clinics throughout Erie County if you haven't gotten vaccinated yet or need your booster.