Western New York has made some progress on a couple of key Covid-19 metrics as the state Department of Health continues to work on a plan to allow fans to attend a Buffalo Bills home playoff game, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday.
The categories of workers eligible to receive the vaccine also are expanding across the state, which, by the end of the week, will have delivered about 64,500 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine to the region, Cuomo said during a briefing in Albany.
The percentage of Covid-19 tests that were reported positive in the five-county Western New York region was 6.43% on Sunday, the fourth lowest among the state's 10 regions. A month ago, Western New York had the highest positivity rate in the state.
"I think Western New York has heard the message," Cuomo said.
The number of people hospitalized with Covid-19 on Sunday in Western New York was 494 people, down from the peak of 548 on Dec. 10.
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But state officials are keeping a close eye on a key statewide metric – the daily positivity rate rose on Sunday to 8.33%, a sharp increase from 5.85% on Saturday and 5.36% on Friday.
"For it to go up in two days is dramatic and very, very fast," the governor said.
State officials are not sure what the increase means, Cuomo said, adding that other states have seen significant increases in recent days.
The number of people tested decreased by almost half over that time and testing at urgent care facilities increased. It's possible the increase is due to more symptomatic people going to get tested, the governor said.
Meanwhile, state health officials continue to work with Bills officials on a plan to possibly allow fans to attend the team's home playoff game at Bills Stadium in Orchard Park, Cuomo said.
Last week, Cuomo announced the state is looking at ways to allow up to 6,700 fans into the game, through a combination of pregame Covid-19 testing and postgame contact tracing. Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz has said a firm plan would have to be announced by Tuesday or Wednesday of this week in order for the county to be ready to put its workforce in place.
Cuomo said the "pilot plan" being designed by state health officials is "not just about attending a football game," but has the potential to guide planning for future business reopenings.
"We are trying to find a way to reopen businesses and use our technology to reopen businesses," he said. "It is not going to be an option for us to keep the economy closed until the vaccine hits critical mass."
Cuomo pointed to the difference in how soon experts say the country will reach herd immunity through the vaccine. Some say June, others September and now others are saying the end of the year, Cuomo said.
Getting the vaccine administered is going to take many months.
"If you wait to hit critical mass for the vaccine, you are talking about closing the economy for six, nine, 12 months going forward. If it goes to 12 months, that means a longer period than since this began. That is not possible. It's not possible economically, psychologically, it's just not possible. So how do you start to reopen businesses safely? How do you use our testing capacity to reopen businesses safely? And that's what we're working on."
So far, about 140,000 people in the state have received one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. The state expects to receive about 259,000 more vaccine doses this week, Cuomo said.
Some new groups of workers will be eligible to receive the vaccine this week, Cuomo announced. Those consist of urgent care center employees, individuals administering the vaccine, including Health Department staff, as well as residents of residents of congregate housing facilities run by the state Office of Addiction Services and Supports.
Vaccines will continue to be administered to high-risk hospital health care workers; emergency medical services workers; coroners, medical examiners and certain funeral workers; and other congregate facility staff and residents.
Next week, additional groups become vaccine-eligible: all ambulatory health care workers and public-facing public health workers, including those administering Covid-19 tests.
On Sunday, 114 New Yorkers died of Covid-19, Cuomo said, bringing the death toll across the state thus far in the pandemic to 29,629 people.
