Christine Schuyler, Chautauqua County public health director and commissioner of Social Services.

If you happen to see Christine Schuyler out in public, odds are she may be wearing a mask.

Schuyler, who is the Chautauqua County public health director and commissioner of Social Services, is fully vaccinated. She’s not “scared” of getting COVID-19, but she does want to do her part to protect the people around her she loves, including her grandchildren, who are too young to get vaccinated. So she wears her mask to help slow the spread.

“We can’t just think of ourselves, but also think of others around us,” she said during a phone interview Wednesday.

Right now Chautauqua County has 48.5% of the entire population fully vaccinated. If you count only those eligible for the vaccine – individuals 12 and up – it’s closer to 56%. Still, that’s a long way to go to reach herd immunity.

Herd immunity, which some health experts believe is when 70% or more of the population is vaccinated, won’t eliminate COVID-19, but will change it from being a “pandemic” to being an “endemic.” The endemic stage will happen, explained Schuyler, is when enough people gain immunity, and there will be less serious illnesses and death. “It will be controllable,” she said.

Schuyler noted that vaccines have been proven to be effective against diseases like influenza, chicken pox and pertussis. “We have learned how to live with them with available vaccine and other mitigation strategies,” she said.

But society in general and Chautauqua County, specifically, is a ways away from reaching that level of herd immunity. Until we do, Schuyler said they’re going to continue to promote things like wearing masks, physical distancing, proper ventilation, hand washing and staying home when you’re sick.

It’s particularly important as school returns. “I think we all have a common goal and that is getting our children back in school and keeping them there,” she said.

New York state has already announced that statewide masks will be required in the fall, regardless of vaccination status. “It doesn’t mean it’s going to be that way forever. … if we can get to a point where we’re not in a moderate or high community level of transmission, it can change,” Schuyler said.

Chautauqua County reported 32 new cases Tuesday. There were 733 new COVID-19 cases in the month of August, along with six deaths. By comparison, there were 54 new COVID cases in the month of July with one death. In August 2020, Chautauqua County reported 165 cases of COVID for the entire month.

Schuyler said the increase is primarily due to the delta variant. State health officials say it is two and a half times more transmissible and responsible for 90% of the new cases.