New COVID-19 Restrictions Announced For Parts of Erie County

We were expecting an announcement in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic from Governor Andrew Cuomo and that came late Monday, morning.

According to WGRZ, Governor Cuomo announced that parts of Erie County will become a "yellow" micro-cluster zone, which is the lowest designation of zones for micro-clusters. Orange and red are the two higher designations.

Along with Erie County, parts of Monroe and Onondaga counties are also yellow micro-cluster zones. You can see the yellow zones below from Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.

Yellow micro-cluster zones have these restrictions:

• No gatherings of more than 25 people.
• Houses of worship of 50 percent capacity or less.
• Four people or less for outdoor and indoor dining.
• Schools stay open with mandatory testing on a weekly basis for students, staff, and teachers.

Bars will need to close at midnight, as well.

"Micro-cluster approach works, it's inarguable, do more testing, more targeting, as soon as you see an increase, be more aggressive," said Cuomo.

It's unclear how long the yellow micro-cluster designation will remain in place but likely until the positivity rate is low enough.