Cattaraugus County’s COVID-19 count inched up by two more residents who received positive test results on Tuesday.
There have now been 5,761 residents diagnosed with the coronavirus since Match 2020. Most have recovered. There have been 108 deaths.
There has been a small upswing of 14 cases since Friday. Many of the new cases were linked to a family church camp in Pennsylvania in early July.
The new cases are mostly all among unvaccinated individuals.
There are currently 32 active cases including five who are hospitalized.
The new cases Tuesday were a man and a woman from the northeast part of the county where there have now been 1,096 cases of COVID-19.
There have been 3,102 cases reported in the southeast part of the county, 865 from the southwest and 698 from the northwest. There have been 2,688 men and 3,073 women from the county diagnosed with COVID-19.
Cattaraugus County Public Health Director Dr. Kevin D. Watkins said Tuesday’s positivity rate was 7.8%, the seven-day rolling average was 2.8% and the 14-day average was 1.5%.
There are 30,961 county residents who have completed their vaccine series and 33,358 people with at least one vaccine dose. That’s 52.8% of the county’s 18 and older population and 43.4% of the entire population with at least one vaccine dose, Watkins said..
The health department has scheduled vaccination clinics at schools across the county this week and next. Those clinics will have the Pfizer vaccine, which requires a second dose in 28 days, and the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The public is welcome at the school clinics as well as youth ages 12-18. Walk-ins are also welcomed. The school clinics include:
Cattaraugus and Randolph, today.
Hinsdale, July 22.
Olean, July 26.
Salamanca, July 27.
Franklinville, July 28.
Portville, July 29.
Appointments for vaccinations can be made through the Cattaraugus County website by visiting: https://www.cattco.org/covid-vacc-info or call the COVID-19 Vaccine Hotline at (716) 701-3777.
To register for a free COVID-19 diagnostic test through the county health department, go online to:
IN NEW YORK STATE, new cases of COVID-19 were back over 1,100 Monday after falling below 1,000 the day before.
The state recorded 1,144 new cases Monday, up from 823 Sunday. The state also saw over 1,100 new cases day on Friday and Saturday.
Cases have increased rapidly since bottoming out at less than 300 a day at points in late June. The seven-day average number of new cases in the state rose over 154% from July 1 to July 18.
And after remaining flat for several weeks despite an increase in cases, COVID hospitalizations are also moving higher.
They rose 46 Monday to 424. It was the first time hospitalizations were over 400 since June 24. They have increased 21% since July 1.
The percentage of people testing positive for the coronavirus has been rising as well, although the state is testing fewer people now than it was previously. That could skew the positive test rate.
New York had been testing over 200,000 people a day on a regular basis, but the total has been less than 80,000 most days in July.
Statewide on Monday, 1.67% of tests for the virus came back positive. The seven-day average was 1.31%, up from a low point of 0.3% in June.
