Many people are wondering why most of Erie County is still in the orange restriction zone, designated by Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York State.

Enter your number to get our free mobile app

The state designated much of Erie County to the orange zone back in November and it's stayed that way ever since. The designation was due to the Western New York region having the worst COVID-19 numbers at the time across the state.

There was a slight uptick in the positivity rate. Erie County was at 7.0 percent on January 2nd. The Western New York region's seven-day positivity rate over the weekend was just under 8 percent.

However, seven regions across the state had a higher seven-day positivity rate than Western New York, yet Erie County remains in the orange zone.

According to WGRZ, 24 yellow zone micro clusters have worse infection rates than Western New York, yet there's been no change with the orange zones in Erie County.

So, why has Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state left the region in the orange.zone?

Governor Andrew Cuomo said, "I believe the restrictions have helped because Western New York —  your basic thrust is right. We did see a flattening, which is good, then a slight decline — we have seen a recent uptick. But the point about the zones, is put the restrictions in place to control the virus — if we see a decline and a continuing decline we can relax the restrictions."

However, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said that he thinks it's unfair that much of Erie County is still in a orange cluster zone when other regions who are worse, are not.

Poloncarz added that because of the recent slight uptick in COVID-19 numbers, that Erie County has not been able to get back to a yellow zone.

You can read more here.

KEEP READING: 50 community resources supporting Americans financially impacted by COVID-19

More From 92.9 WBUF