BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — COVID-19 positive numbers in Western New York over the last few weeks have been some of the highest in the state. In fact, Wednesday’s positive percentage was almost double the state average.
“Western New York is not good news,” said Governor Andrew Cuomo on a conference call Thursday
“We don’t want to make this upcoming holiday weekend more fuel to feed this new coronavirus,” said infectious diseases expert, Dr. Thomas Russo. He is the Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo. Dr. Russo said he is “more concerned” about Labor Day weekend than he was about the 4th of July.
“And that’s primarily because we had a bump in the number of cases that we really need to get on top of and tamp down before this situation starts to get a little bit out of control,” said Dr. Russo.
Dr. Russo urges those who will celebrate this weekend to stay outside rather than inside. He suggested putting families that live together seated together outside at separate tables 10 - 15 feet apart with food on another table.
“If suddenly we have a pop up thunderstorm please don’t have everyone run indoors. It really would be best in that case for everyone to run to their cars,” said Dr. Russo.
Dr. Russo also wants to remind everyone to wear a mask-- even outside --to wash your hands and stay socially distant.
“I think this holiday weekend, considering that we haven’t been great over the past several weeks, we really need to be on our best behavior and make every effort possible not to have individuals contract new coronavirus infections,” said Dr. Russo.
