Oneida County Executive reacts to COVID numbers.

Oneida County Executive reacts to COVID numbers.

Highest number of coronavirus positive cases and the highest total active cases since the pandemic began...another grim statistic... four county residents have died in the last 24 hours.

As the numbers continue to increase, some are wondering, what zone are we in?

News channel 2's caitlin irla spoke to the county executive tonight to get the answer.

She joins us live here in the studio.

Caitlin, good evening.

Jason, we've seen high numbers for the last two weeks... the question on everyone's mind... are we in a yellow zone?

An orange zone?

A red zone?

Oneida county executive, anthony picente says at this point... that doesn't really matter.

"there's not anything else we can do, even with the zones, and you'll probably see some changes in that in terms of next week but the point of it is what else can we close down, and what will that do in the midst of the high numbers we're seeing right now."

"our infection rate one a daily basis has been well over 3, and 4, and as high as 5 on certain days so we're clearly in that but i think most communities are."

In october... governor cuomo started to designate geographic areas across the state as yellow, orange or red micro-cluster zones in response to a rising number of covid-19 cases.

"i know everyone wants to know, are we in the yellow and we in the red?

It doesn't really matter right now."

"while we're worrying about it the numbers keep going up.

What are those zones going to do?"

Each zone has different criteria... the higher the infection rate... the stronger the restrictions.

But with covid cases climbing here in oneida county...it seems as if it may be too late.

"we don't know if closing things is going to work, at this point, again because of the climb we have taken the past couple of weeks back in april when those were the early days, things were shut down and that really did stop the curve, i don't know, there comes a point where you missed the mark of doing that and it seems like we're climbing up that peak and can't, even turning back may not resolve anything, what are you going to do?

You're telling people not to gather at home and you're putting everyone at home."

Picente says this increase in cases can be attributed to thanksgiving and the amount of people getting tested before that.

And -- he, and the governor say it will continue through the rest of the holiday season.

They were a lot of test prior to thanksgiving and they were a lot of tests mediately the day after and over the weekend when they returned and we know from our tracing that there are lotta families and a lot of connections from the holidays that reflected in the numbers that's just what we're going to be dealing with probably four and the governor said as well for the next 37 days" the county executive says he will be holding a briefing soon.

If not tomorrow, most likely on monday.

Jason back to you.

That news is on top of a record 255 new cases.

There are two