Second wave hits Buffalo area ‘with a vengeance’
Hospitalizations in the city have surpassed levels seen in the spring
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Over the past month, the number of coronavirus cases has increased tenfold in the upstate city of Buffalo and its surrounding suburbs. Hospitalizations already have surpassed the levels seen in the spring. And the COVID-19 hotline for Erie County, where Buffalo is situated, is getting “annihilated,” the health commissioner said, with 1,500 calls in one 24-hour period this week.
“The second wave is here, and it is here with a vengeance,” Mark Poloncarz, the county executive, said at a news conference, urging residents to take the surge seriously.
Western New York, a fivecounty region of some 1.4 million people along the Canadian border, has emerged as the biggest trouble spot of the state’s second coronavirus wave. If New York City was the hot spot of the spring, then this area seems to presently have that distinction.
Normally known for its neighbourliness, its Buffalo Bills football team and its namesake spicy chicken wings, the region now gets regular criticism from Gov. Andrew Cuomo for its average positive test rate, which has remained around five per cent for two weeks.
By the numbers alone, the Buffalo area already meets the bench marks for the harshest restrictions available to the state — the closing of nonessential businesses and the banning of public gatherings — yet officials have held off.
But as the cases continue to rise, that designation seems almost inevitable.
“We’re watching the numbers,” Cuomo said Wednesday. “We’re going to watch through this Thanksgiving season.”
The rise in Erie County has been a more extreme version of what is happening statewide and more so resembles the uptick in other regions of the country. Since mid- October, the number of cases in the county has gone from 322 per week to 3,449 per week. Hospitalizations have risen from 84 on Nov. 10 to 264 on Nov. 23. While hospitals have sufficient beds for now, county officials said, staff is being stretched thin.
The St. Joseph Campus Hospital, part of the region’s Catholic Health hospital system, has returned to being a coronavirus-only hospital as it was in the spring, with its emergency department temporarily closed.
Intensive care admissions are increasing at a slower rate because of improvements in care, although 40 people have already died of the virus in November, bringing the total coronavirus fatalities in the county to 788 people.
In an encouraging sign, Erie County’s infection rate has levelled off at around seven per cent in the past few days, indicating that some restrictions are having an effect. As the message has gotten through, there are now lines to get coronavirus testing, and masking in public places is generally good, residents said, although there has been some pushback regarding current virus restrictions.
“I do believe the vast majority of people in my community are taking it seriously,” Poloncarz, a Democrat, said in an interview.
“But there are some folks who are not. And unfortunately, those individuals put at risk the entire community for further shutdowns.”
How Western New York got here is not clear-cut. Local epidemiologists and officials say that there was no large outbreak that triggered this second wave. Multigenerational households in Buffalo’s poorer neighbourhoods, which suffered disproportionately early in the spring — when more than 500 people died in the county — have not been the hardest hit this time.
Rather, said Poloncarz, it seems that the November surge started in the wealthier, more conservative suburbs, where people appeared not to be taking enough precautions in private gatherings, bars or restaurants.