The number of people hospitalized for Covid-19 in Western New York may be leveling off, according to statistics from New York State.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo reported that there were 473 Covid-19 patients in hospitals in the five-county region as of Saturday. That is the lowest number hospitalized since Dec. 5, when there were 470 people in hospitals. The region hit its all-time high of 548 people hospitalized with the novel coronavirus Dec. 10.
Still, 72% of the region's hospital beds were in use as of Saturday.
The Western New York region includes Erie, Niagara, Chautauqua, Cattaraugus and Allegany counties.
Also Sunday, the governor called on the federal government to impose new restrictions on the United Kingdom in light of a new, highly contagious variant of Covid-19 circulating in the country. A number of countries have banned people from the UK, or require negative tests before boarding airplanes.
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Cuomo has noted that many Covid-19 cases in New York in the spring came from Europe, before flights were restricted in the United States.
"The United States has a number of flights coming in from the UK each day and we have done absolutely nothing. To me, this is reprehensible because this is what happened in the spring," Cuomo said.
There were 681 new positive cases in the Western New York region Saturday, and there have been a total of 49,611 positive cases regionwide.
The seven-day average percentage of positive results in Western New York was 6.37% Saturday, down from 6.64% Friday and 6.57% Thursday.
Nineteen people died in the region, including 13 in Erie County, three in Niagara, two in Cattaraugus and one in Allegany.
Statewide, 5.05% of those tested were positive Saturday. The number of cases in the state climbed to 197,251, and 28,598 New Yorkers have died.
