BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Are COVID-19 cases peaking in Western New York? Experts said it's too soon to give a definitive answer.
"I'm hoping we may have hit our peak. However, I think we're going to need a few more days to see where we stand. It looks like downstate may have turned the corner, and I think we're lagging downstate by a week plus," Dr. Thomas Russo, professor and chief of infectious disease at the University at Buffalo, said.
"The predictions are within two to four weeks we will know regionally. It may be different in different areas of the country," Dr. Nancy Nielsen, the senior associate dean for health policy at the University at Buffalo, said.
But regardless of when Western New York hits that peak, experts said we aren't out of the woods yet.
"Just because we hit our peak doesn't mean we're out of the woods because we have over 2,000 cases a day still and we know that's an under-representation of the true number of cases," Dr. Russo said.
"Even when we start going down, there are going to be a lot of people getting COVID. We have to wait and see. I don't think our hospitals are out of the woods at all yet. Our hospitalizations are still rising locally," Dr. Nielsen said.
However, experts said the end could be here soon.
"With the combination of protection from vaccination, and then so many people getting infected from Omicron, the hope is that we'll get to that population based degree of immunity that we'll switch from pandemic mode to endemic mode," Dr. Russo said.
