On Thursday, Oneida County announced the highest number of positive coronavirus cases and the highest total active cases since the pandemic began.

The county also announced four COVID related deaths which is the highest since July.

Numbers have been increasing tremendously over the past two weeks, and the question on everyone's mind, what zone are we in?

In October, Governor Andrew 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. Each zone has different criteria, the higher the infection rate, the stronger the restrictions.

"I know everyone wants to know, are we in the yellow, are we in the red? It doesn't really matter right now," Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente said. "While we're worrying about it, the numbers keep going up. What are those zones going to do?"

Picente says at this point, shutting businesses down might not make a difference.

"We don't know if closing things is going to work, at this point, because of the climb we have taken the past couple of weeks," Picente said. "Back in April when those were the early days, things were shut down and that really did stop the curve. There comes a point where you missed the mark of doing that and it seems that we're climbing up that peak and turning back may not resolve anything. What are you going to do? Tell people not to gather at home and then put everyone at home."

Picente says he will be holding a briefing soon.