What you should know
- Beginning Tuesday, anyone age 2 and older must wear masks in all covered public places in Erie County.
- These sites include bars and restaurants, supermarkets, gyms and fitness centers, hotels and banks, and hair salons.
- Erie County, where the city of Buffalo is located, had 456 new cases per 100,000 residents over the past seven days, more than four times the federal government’s high transmission threshold, according to Poloncarz.
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NEW YORK – People will soon have to wear masks indoors again in western New York’s most populous county due to an increase in positive COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the region, authorities said Monday.
Beginning Tuesday, anyone age 2 and older must wear masks in all covered public places in Erie County, including bars and restaurants, grocery stores, gyms and fitness centers, hotels and banks, and hair salons.
County Executive Mark Poloncarz said if the mask mandate doesn’t work by mid-December, the county will require vaccination mandates for indoor meals.
Erie County, where the city of Buffalo is located, had 456 new cases per 100,000 residents over the past seven days, more than four times the federal government’s high transmission threshold, according to Poloncarz.
“This is one of the largest seven-day periods that we have seen,” Poloncarz said in a virtual briefing on Monday.
Poloncarz said that cases among K-12 students and staff are increasing, with those ages 30 to 39 accounting for the majority of cases. He said hospital admissions for COVID-19 have increased by 50% in the past two weeks.
Hospitals in Erie County reported 249 patients as of Sunday, up from 168 on Nov. 7.
About 63% of Erie County residents are fully vaccinated.
But rates are lower in the southern and eastern parts of the county – including 38.4% in the 14034 zip code that includes Collins in southern Erie County.
The vast majority of the state’s 62 counties are seeing sharp increases in new COVID-19 positives, from Long Island to Western New York’s Niagara County.
And much of the state, from Saratoga to Erie County, is also experiencing a sharp increase in hospitalizations.
The county’s reinstatement of the mask mandate follows Governor Kathy Hochul’s warning last week that a continued rise in COVID-19 rates could mean New Yorkers will once again face more virus protocols in high-risk communities. .
But the governor has not established any specific protocols that she can reinstate, including where or when they would go into effect.
Healthcare workers in New York had until Monday to receive their first dose of vaccine under a state mandate that has survived court challenges.
About 95% of healthcare workers had a complete immunization series as of Nov. 17, according to state data.
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