ERIE COUNTY, N.Y. — March 15, marks one year since the first COVID-19 case was reported in Erie County and since then, 1,702 people have lost their lives to the virus.
Monday evening, local leaders gathered at Old County Hall, which was lit up amber to honor those lives lost and the clock tower also rang 17 times in their honor.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz asked people to leave their front porch light on to honor them.
2 On Your Side spoke with Erie County Commissioner of Health Dr. Gale Burstein to reflect on this past year.
"It was like waiting for a bad thing to happen that you knew was going to happen," Burstein said about learning there were cases of COVID-19 in Erie County.
"We knew we were eventually going to get a case of COVID-19 in our county, cause as you remember several days before that Monroe County had their first case so we were just waiting for somebody to be identified."
She added, "It was a very scary time even for us at the health department."
Those initial three cases turned to seven, which turned to 10 and the numbers grew quickly.
Burstein said every year the Erie County Department of Health held drills to practice mass-vaccination distribution and work on case investigations to prepare.
When the pandemic was declared, Erie County needed more hands, especially for contact tracing. Burstein said they started with only a handful of people, but said that group has grown to help her with the extra work.
"I am very fortunate I don't need that much sleep to be able to function, I haven't worked this much since my residency in the early 90's when I was much younger," she said.
She said responding to this pandemic is and has been a huge responsibility one she said she takes very seriously.
2 On Your Side asked if there was anything Burstein wished she had done differently during initial pandemic response.
"I think given the circumstances of what we knew at the time and the resources that we had I think we did a pretty good job with appropriate responses."
She added, "In hindsight if we had better information we could've done it differently; however, I think we did the best we could given the information we had responding to each stage of the epidemic."
Burstein also stressed that Erie County still has a ways to go in fighting this pandemic and said people must stay vigilant in following public health measures. She also said there are still some people unsure about getting the COVID-19 vaccine and said we need to work together to ensure we reach herd immunity.
In one year there were more than 67,000 cases of COVID-19 reported in Erie County and 1,702 people died, all of whom were remembered Monday night.
"I am sure every single person in our community has suffered some loss from COVID-19," Burstein said.