Western New York’s Covid-19 numbers have improved gradually over the course of December, with the average test positive-rate dropping 16% between Dec. 1 and Dec. 25 and new infections falling to roughly 760 per day in the week before Christmas.
But immediately to the east, in what New York State has classified as the “Finger Lakes” region – a nine-county area including Genesee, Wyoming and Orleans counties, as well as Monroe County and the city of Rochester – Covid-19 has worsened during the same period, hitting record hospitalizations over the Christmas weekend.
Those developments have no direct impact on business shutdowns or other containment measures in Western New York, which the state defines as the five counties of Erie, Niagara, Chautauqua, Allegany and Cattaraugus.
But worsening conditions on its borders could endanger pandemic-control efforts here, in large part because there is so much contact between the two regions. In 2015, the most recent year with complete data available, more than 20,500 people traveled between the two regions for work alone, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
People are also reading…
"Finger Lakes is a problem because they are part of Western New York," Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said during a press briefing on Dec. 21. "... And you can't have two contiguous areas where one has a low infection rate and one has a high infection rate, because the high infection rate (area) winds up infecting the lower infection rate (area)."
In the week since Cuomo made those comments, positive test rates in the Finger Lakes seem to have leveled out slightly – though they remain well above Western New York levels, and hospitalizations have ballooned.
The region reported a record-breaking 921 hospitalized patients on the day after Christmas, with roughly 15% of those patients in intensive care units.
On an average day in the week ending Dec. 26, 8.1% of all Covid-19 tests in the Finger Lakes came back positive, according to the state Department of Health, while roughly 940 people tested positive each day in the week before Christmas.
In Genesee County, 30 minutes east of downtown Buffalo on the New York State Thruway, that works out to roughly 109 new daily cases per 100,000 people, according to a database maintained by the New York Times and analyzed by The Buffalo News. That was the highest population-adjusted case rate in the state as of Saturday.
Harry Hays, 97, said he was grateful to see his wife for a couple of hours the day before she died, but he is heartbroken.
By comparison, Western New York appeared to improve as the holiday weekend approached, though several counties did not report case counts Friday or Saturday, and test volumes across the region were low both days. On Christmas Eve, the region reported its lowest number of positive tests since Thanksgiving.
Statewide, average daily cases were up very slightly – under 2% – over the week ending Saturday. The number of hospitalized patients also increased by 852 over that period. In a statement Sunday, Cuomo said the vaccine offered “a light at the end of the tunnel,” but urged New Yorkers to continue doing their “part to slow the spread.”
"It has been a tough year and we still have several tough months ahead,” he said.
