OVID-19 cases have bottomed out and are clearly on an upward trajectory again in Cattaraugus County.
The health department reported 101 new cases from Saturday, Sunday and Monday and said there are 216 active cases. There have now been 18,638 residents diagnosed with the coronavirus. There have been 247 COVID-19 deaths.
Despite rising cases presumably tied to the Omicron subvariant BA.2, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention consider Cattaraugus County a low community level county.
In fact, Cattaraugus, Allegany and Chautauqua counties are surrounded by New York counties in a medium or high level category. Erie and Steuben counties have a high level of transmission, while Wyoming and Livingston counties have a medium level of community transmission.
The CDC’s COVID Data Tracker for Cattaraugus County shows 127 cases in the seven days ending Sunday. That is a rate of 166.85 per 100,000, up 98.44% over the previous seven day period.
Friday’s seven-day average positivity was 12.05%, up 5.79% over the previous seven-day period.
Testing rates continue to decline, with 934 tests reported in the week ending April 18, down 11.7%.
There were two new COVID-19 hospitalizations in the week ending Saturday.
Public Health Director Dr. Kevin D. Watkins reported 17 new cases on Saturday, 19 on Sunday and 65 on Monday. That pushed April’s total after 25 days to 515 cases. There were 416 cases in March, 1,161 in February and 4,739 in January, a record in this pandemic.
There have been 208 cases this month in the southeast part of the county where there have been a total of 8,547 cases. Nearly half the total cases in the county, 45.9% have occurred in the southeast.
In the southwest, there were 92 cases this month and a total of 3,691 cases; the northeast had 124 cases this month and a total of 3,711 cases, and the northwest had 91 cases this month and a total of 2,689 cases.
There were 256 men who tested positive for COVID-19 this month for a total of 8,878 cases. Women had 189 new cases for a total of 9,670.
