The Western New York region is ready to reopen with Phase 1 starting on Tuesday. New York State required the region to meet seven key measures, the last of which — the number of contact tracers — caused some confusion over the weekend.


What You Need To Know

  • Western New York to reopen with Phase 1 on Tuesday

  • Gov. Cuomo said region needed to add 352 contact tracers

  • Those spots were filled in a day following some confusion

Contact tracers make calls to people who have contracted COVID-19, and then investigate other people they've come in contact with who might have been exposed to the virus.

On Sunday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the region needed to add 352 contact tracers, which came as a surprise to county leaders.

In just a day, Western New York had those spots filled. How? The state was only taking into account peopled who'd already been trained, while the region had hundreds of people identified to be trained but just needed to take a four- to five-hour online course. 

"We were not going to be the reason that it was delayed any longer than it needed to be," said Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.

Additionally, the state had required 30 tracers for every 100,000 residents — but that number was increased based on the rate of infection for COVID-19 in the region. 

That sent leaders searching for more people to surpass the requirement of 521 tracers.

“Thirty per 100,000 is the base, it's not the limit, so we had to identify more and that's exactly what we did," Poloncarz said. "To the point where I said to my staff, I go, 'You know what ,if I we have to, I'm going to sign up to become a contact tracer.’"

Poloncarz says Erie County will have nearly 340 county personnel available if there is a spike in cases after reopening begins, but there is a team of 30 already doing the job. 

Those tracers will call people who've been in contact with someone who has COVID-19. The health department then recommends those folks go into quarantine and have a diagnostic test to help slow down the spread.

“Our entire health department is taking the contact tracing test by tomorrow morning," Poloncarz said.

"We want to get our businesses open and running," said Niagara County Legislature Chairman Rebecca Wydysh. "We want to make sure that we don't see a new spike in cases because we're putting more people back together out in society."

Niagara County Legislature Chair Rebecca Wydysh says they'll have 74 people ready to take on the task. Twenty-two of them are from the county health department, while the remaining 52 will come from the sheriff's department. 

"Really the goal there in using the sheriff's staff is that these are individuals that are already familiar with the process of investigations," Wydysh said.

Allegany, Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties will contribute more than 100 tracers to make up the rest of the region's total of 525.

People who want to become contact tracers for the state can apply on the state health department's coronavirus website.