Coronavirus: New York shifts metrics, allowing Buffalo and Albany to open sooner

ALBANY – The Buffalo and Albany areas will soon start reopening from coronavirus shutdowns after Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration made a major shift Sunday in the way it calculates its COVID-19 benchmarks.

On Monday, Western New York got the green light to enter Phase 1 of the state's reopening process Tuesday, at least a week sooner than they would have been able to under the state's prior calculation.

The Capital Region is expected to soon follow after hiring additional contact tracers tasked with keeping contact with COVID-positive patients and others who are quarantined.

When they open, seven of the state's 10 regions — all of them upstate — will have begun the state's reopening process. About 70 percent of the state's population resides in the remaining three regions, which cover New York City and its suburbs.

New York has been hit harder by the virus than any other state with more than 22,000 confirmed deaths and 350,000 people testing positive. 

"We’ll be talking to the regional heads today to find those additional personnel and get them trained and get them ready," Cuomo said of Western New York and the Capital Region at his daily coronavirus briefing Sunday. "But that’s the only function that needs to be performed for those regions to function.”

Phase 1 allows nonessential manufacturing, construction and retail businesses to reopen, but with social-distancing and density-reduction precautions in place. Retail is only allowed curbside or in-store pickups.

Regions must meet seven metrics

New York is only allowing its individual regions to begin reopening process if they meet seven key metrics identified by the Cuomo administration to ensure the virus spread has slowed.

Originally, those standards required regions to show a sustained, 14-day decline in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths. Alternatively, a region could meet that standard if they had never seen a spike of more than 15 hospitalizations or five deaths in any three-day period since the start of the virus outbreak in March.

As of Saturday, Western New York and the Capital Region were both at least 10 days away from meeting the former benchmark because they had only seen a few days of sustained decline. They were disqualified from meeting the latter benchmark because they had seen significant spikes in March and April.

That changed Sunday.

Cuomo's administration reset the clock to May 15, when the state's first regions were allowed to reopen. The shift allowed the Capital Region and Western New York to qualify because they haven't seen a sharp spike in the past three days.

A Democrat, Cuomo did not mention the state's shift in calculating metrics during his briefing.

Jim Malatras, a Cuomo adviser who is president of SUNY Empire State College, said the state intended to look at the metrics in phases. The May 15 reset matched up with end of NYS on Pause, the stay-at-home order that expired May 15 in regions of the state that qualified for reopening.

The governor had faced criticism in recent days from local government officials who had questioned the state's data and whether they should be kept from reopening because of spikes that occurred weeks ago.

Buffalo, Albany get major boost

The major calculation change allowed the Capital Region, home to Albany, and Western New York, home to Buffalo, to meet six of the seven necessary metrics as of Sunday, lacking only the required number of contact tracers.

Western New York hit that mark Monday when it identified 525 people who will serve as tracers. The Capital Region needs 383 and was 166 short as of Sunday.

On Sunday, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said the county was in the process of training 291 contact tracers and was willing to identify more if it helps push the Western New York region over the finish line.

"So our 291 identified employees is greater than our allotment, but if we have to do more to meet all of WNY's counties requirements we will," Poloncarz tweeted Sunday. "I guarantee it."

By Monday, the region hit the mark.

Downstate still a ways off

Downstate New York, meanwhile, remains more than a week away from reopening, based on the state's metrics.

New York City and the Mid-Hudson, which includes the city's northern suburbs, need to decrease their new daily COVID hospitalization rates to below 2 per 100,000 residents. As of Sunday, New York City was at 2.32 and the Mid-Hudson was at 2.41.

The Mid-Hudson region also has to see another 12 days of declining COVID deaths at hospitals, while New York City needs to increase its percentage of available hospital beds, according to the state's dashboard.

The Long Island Region has to see another 10 days of declining deaths (which are calculated on a three-day rolling basis), while all three downstate regions have to hire more contact tracers.

More:New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo just took a COVID-19 test live on TV

More:Coronavirus in New York: Interactive map of cases and deaths by county

Jon Campbell is a New York state government reporter for the USA TODAY Network. He can be reached at JCAMPBELL1@Gannett.com or on Twitter at @JonCampbellGAN.

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