A spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Wendel sought to cast some doubt on the high positivity rate, saying if more people throughout Chautauqua County were tested, he believed the percentages would go down.
“We’re not testing nearly as many people as we were,” he said, adding that in the summer, the county was testing between 2,000 and 3,000 people per day and had zero positive cases during a four-day period in August.
Western New York’s virus numbers are hot and getting hotter. Heading into a season of holiday gatherings, there’s little reason to think they’re going to settle down.
Saturday, 395 people in Chautauqua County were tested and 94 were positive for coronavirus, data showed.
“If we were to go out and start to test the way we tested in the beginning of this, those numbers would all start to drop, without a doubt,” Wendel said.
Still, unlike Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz, Wendel said he does not plan to issue a countywide mask mandate.
“Each county focuses on their individual situation,” Wendel said. “We discussed it. My team, we message and talk every day. The question I ask: ‘Does anybody feel we need to issue a mandate?’ And they all have the same position, that the mandates are just not the way to do it.”
Wendel said backlash against vaccine mandates for health care workers and other professions has contributed to his constituents refusing to get the jab. Other Chautauqua County residents are viewing the vaccine not as a public health response, but as a political statement distinguishing Democrats from Republicans.
