Testing is finally expanding on a broader scale here. For the first time, anyone with Covid-19 symptoms who wants to be tested can be tested, Kaleida Health and Erie County government officials announced Monday.
"We are expanding our testing to any symptomatic individual, so regardless of where you work," said Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein.
Tests can be ordered through a primary care physician or through the county Health Department.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he's considering allowing elective surgeries at hospitals under certain conditions.
Frustrated residents say reopening of the economy can't happen soon enough. Over the last three weeks, one of every seven workers across the Buffalo Niagara region has filed for unemployment benefits.
About 150 vehicles circled Niagara Square on Monday to protest the business closures and other state restrictions.
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“I want New York to open,” said Lou McDonald of Blasdell, who wore wore a mask inside his pickup.
Lona DeNisco, an emergency department nurse at Erie County Medical Center, showed up at the protest wearing her mask and scrubs. She held a sign that said, “Your home or hospital or your grave.”
“There are nurses risking their lives,” DeNisco said, explaining her counter-protest.
While health care workers remain at risk, only about 1% of the roughly 30,000 area hospital system employees have tested positive for the virus. Among those tested, 18% tested positive.
The number of local deaths keeps climbing, with 27 people in Erie County having died over the last three days, bringing the total to 162.
That includes 61 people living at nursing homes and adult care facilities.
Some residents fear that the number of confirmed Covid-19 deaths doesn't reflect the true death toll. One family recounted how their son had Covid-19 symptoms and collapsed in his kitchen and died without being tested.
"If you could give this broken family any insight as to how to have a sample or test taken for later testing," his mother said, "he can be put to rest and we could recover some peace."
