Will Erie County's "yellow" precautionary zone go orange? Or even the most-restrictive red?
Will any schools have to go remote-only? Will restaurants have to stop serving indoors? Will salons and movie theaters have to shut down?
Those questions and others should be answered Wednesday.
That's according to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, who gave a terse update on the pandemic Tuesday afternoon.
"The conversations I've had with the governor's office indicates that an announcement will be made tomorrow, on Wednesday, on a determination as to whether portions of the yellow zone will enter orange or, for that matter, red," Poloncarz said in a briefing, which was broadcast via Youtube.
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His warning came as the state announced more bad news for the Buffalo Niagara region: The state recorded 11 deaths Tuesday in Erie County, the highest total in the state, including New York City, for the second straight day.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo placed a swath of Erie County in a yellow zone Nov. 9 as local infection numbers spiked. That placed new restrictions on gatherings and dining. But then, two days later, Cuomo announced new statewide rules that barred gatherings of more than 10 people at a home, inside or out, and forced bars and restaurants to close at 10 p.m.
Orange zones would shutter businesses that are considered high-risk, such as gyms and movie theaters, and close on-site learning at schools.
In red zones, nonessential gatherings are prohibited, nonessential businesses are closed, schools are remote-instruction only, dining is limited to takeout and delivery, and houses of worship are limited to 25% of capacity or 10 people, whichever is lower.
But the timetable for a region to move from one zone status to another is murky.
Erie County has seen steadily rising Covid-19 infection numbers since it was placed into a yellow zone more than week ago and county officials thought they would hear as early as Monday what the state planned to do.
The village of Port Chester in Westchester County was declared by Cuomo to be a yellow zone Nov. 6. Five days later, he designated the village an orange zone because, his office said at the time, "the seven-day average positivity rate in Port Chester has been above 3% for 10 days, meeting the metrics for an orange warning zone declaration."
Doing the math
A red zone designation would bring shutdowns similar to what the state imposed in the spring.
The numbers suggest that moving to the more restrictive orange classification is likely.
A Buffalo News analysis of state data projects that, even if the county's yellow zone cut its coronavirus positive rate in half for each of the next three days, it would still reach the primary statistical threshold to move to the red zone: 10 days with a seven-day rolling average positive rate above 4%.
On Wednesday, the state announced that the Erie County yellow zone's positive rate for Monday's testing was 8.05%, the fourth day in the last week that the rate exceeded 8%. The yellow zone's seven-day average rate increased from 7.26% to 7.33%.
Poloncarz implored the public to heed the warnings of medical experts by wearing masks and being careful at bars.
"Some people in our community are not taking this seriously, including some of my fellow elected officials," Poloncarz said. "It is time to put politics aside. It is time to work together to create a stronger, better community for all."
Buffalo, Lackawanna and the City of Tonanwanda, as well as the towns of Amherst, Grand Island, Clarence, Lancaster, Elma, Aurora, Orchard Park, Hamburg, Tonawanda, West Seneca and Cheektowaga are in the yellow zone.
Poloncarz also said it's possible that areas not in yellow will be added after Wednesday.
"There is not a single town or city in Erie County that has an infection rate below 3%," he said.
Poloncarz pointed to several communities in outer Erie County that are seeing high rates of infection, including North Collins at 11.6%, Boston at 11.5% and the Derby section of Evans with 10.9%. These areas could be subjected to new yellow zone rules.
A spike in Hamburg
Hamburg has been among the hardest hit communities in recent days.
Hamburg tops the list of ZIP codes in Erie County that have seen a recent surge in new cases of Covid-19.
There were 234 positive cases reported in the 14075 ZIP code during the week ending Nov. 14, by far the highest number reported in the county for that week, according to the Erie County Health Department. That's a positive rate of 79.7 per 100,000 people.
The increase in cases in the community is having an impact on Hamburg's schools. While county and school district officials say there's little evidence that the virus is spreading at schools, they're seeing a spike in cases related to out-of-school situations – such as travel sports in some instances and general community spread.
Hamburg Town Supervisor James M. Shaw said he has no inside information, but he does wonder about what effect, if any, election day and early voting had on the spread of the virus. There were about 9,000 people voting early at Hamburg Town Hall, waiting, sometimes for more than an hour, in a line that snaked around the hall outside the basement conference room.
He also noted that a rally drew crowds to the front lawn of Town Hall in late September, and said he had seen complaints on Facebook about some people at various retail outlets not wearing masks consistently.
"If we are put into an orange or red zone designation, then the restrictions on day-to-day interactions will be all the more severe and it will place a tremendous burden upon small businesses in the community, put downward pressure on existing businesses to lay off people or to terminate them," Shaw said. "The misery will accelerate."
Frontier Schools went all remote last week, following a number of positive cases. It has seen one of the highest number of coronavirus cases for those learning and working in school buildings in Erie and Niagara counties, 32 as of Monday.
Frontier Superintendent Richard Hughes said it was an incredibly difficult decision, but, "the rate has to come down in our area."
There have been students quarantined because of their participation in outside sports clubs, such as hockey, he said.
"It seems to be happening more and more because we're inside," Hughes said.
Orchard Park Schools
Orchard Park Schools announced Tuesday that it will go fully remote starting Monday.
The move is driven by extensive absences by students, teachers and staff.
"These absences are in many cases tied to quarantine or isolation orders by the Erie County Health Department," Superintendent Matthew McGarrity wrote. "A continued increase in Covid-19 cases is impairing our ability to provide face-to-face instruction."
News Staff Reporter Mary Pasciak contributed to this report.
