On Saturday, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz and the county health department reported 700 new cases of COVID-19.

County health officials say the daily positivity rate did drop from 8.7% Thursday to 7.1% Friday.

The county's seven-day positivity rate average is 7.8%, down from 8.4% the day before.

This brings the total case number to 28,765 in the county since the start of the pandemic.

The latest numbers from the state show 15 people died from the virus across the region Friday, 10 in Erie County, four in Niagara County and 1 in Allegany County.

The state says Western New York also had a daily positivity rate of 7.6% Friday, down from 8.2% Thursday.

That's still the highest rate of any region here in New York.

As for the color-coded virus zones in our region, Erie County's orange zone had a seven-day rolling average of 7.63% Friday, down just slightly from 7.67% on Thursday.

Erie County's yellow zone had a seven-day rolling average of 8.75% Friday, up from 8.35% the day before.

Niagara County's yellow zone had a seven-day rolling average of 8.91% Friday, up from 8.51%.