Albany County sees spike
With 44 new COVID cases, county executive warns restrictions could return
In late June, the county went through a five-day period with just 10 new positive coronavirus cases, an average of two a day. Then July Fourth came and ended weeks of progress.
The county recorded 44 new COVID-19 cases overnight Tuesday, its highest total since late May. County officials said they believe the main cause behind the spike was Independence Day parties, including a large gathering in the city’s student neighborhood, and a sense of complacency among residents. The increase in cases pushed the county’s five-day average to 16 new cases a day.
Albany County Executive Dan Mccoy expressed concern that the region may be forced to again shut down certain activities if people do not wear masks and quarantine after traveling from states with major virus increases.
“The last thing I want to do is say, ‘Hey, look, you have to close down,’” Mccoy said at a news conference Wednesday. “If we can continue to go down this path, it’s going to be a long process.”
The jump in cases, which brings the county’s total to 2,053 since the pandemic
began, is in part attributed to community spread with no clear connection between cases. But the county is also tracking several clusters connected with July Fourth parties and people who traveled out of state for the holiday. The county provided data that showed several previous spikes were within two weeks of other holidays or gathering dates such as Mother’s Day and Easter. In general, experts believe that it can take up to 14 days for a person to show symptoms after being infected with the virus.
On Wednesday, the Capital Region had the highest percent of tests that came back positive — 2.1 percent — of all regions in New York. New York City, in comparison, had 1.3 percent of people test positive. The eight-county Capital Region recorded 71 new cases of coronavirus Wednesday — a new daily high for the month of July, bolstered largely by the new Albany County cases. There were 281 active cases in the region as of Wednesday, up 61 from the day before. Twenty-nine residents were hospitalized with the virus.
Overall, New York’s numbers remained steady, with nine deaths and 11 more people admitted to the hospital overnight statewide, for a total of 831 people hospitalized.
In Albany County only two COVID patients were in the hospital Tuesday. But officials worry that rising case numbers will soon affect hospitalizations as well.
Albany County is particularly concerned about six cases that have been traced to a Hudson Avenue party that covered several backyards. Photographs of the party obtained by the Times Union show dozens, if not hundreds, of collegeage students gathering together in the street with no masks. Mccoy and County Health Commissioner Elizabeth Whalen said that they are still contact tracing to find other people who may have attended the party and that they expect more positive cases to come from it.
Whalen urged people who were at the party to get tested. “The party that was referenced was not at a single home, from what we’re hearing, but in a large area of Hudson Avenue in backyards,” Whalen said. “Please consider being tested. We need to stop this. We need to make sure those who are infected don’t continue to spread this disease.”
Whalen added that some of the people at the party who later tested positive were not showing symptoms.
The other clusters include four people who tested positive after flying into Albany from Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Cancun, Mexico. Two others drove from their winter homes in Florida and South Carolina.
The increase also includes eight cases among residents of St. Peter’s Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center. That outbreak began around the time a nurse’s aide who was in quarantine after traveling out of state returned to work, allegedly due to staffing needs, a person briefed on the situation told the Times Union. Nine health care workers were also part of the positive case count Tuesday, but the county did not say where those people work.
Nursing home cases are also coming back in the Capital Region after experiencing a lull for several weeks. Riverside Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Castletonon-hudson had 30 residents test positive for the virus last week, along with 11 staff members. Four other health care workers in Rensselaer County at Living Resources and Evergreen Commons also tested positive Tuesday.
The July Fourth party on Hudson Avenue raises the specter of off-campus parties being hubs for the spreading of the virus.
“Part of our plan to return is to do significant outreach to all students, but especially those living off campus, about what our expectations are for adhering to the governor’s executive orders off campus,” University at Albany spokesman Jordan Carleo-evangelist said. “We’re encouraging them to avoid large gatherings, period.”
The Albany Police Department routinely informs Ualbany officials when officers break up parties in off-campus housing, and such notices can lead to investigations into student violations of the school’s code of conduct.
“There is this collective responsibility: If they want our campus to remain open, then they need to follow these guidelines,” Carleo-evangelist said. “And if that is not enough, we can absolutely sanction them under the code of conduct if we can show that they violated the executive orders or acted in any other way that jeopardizes the health and safety of anyone else around them.”
Albany County hasn’t seen new daily case counts in the 40s since 41 people were diagnosed May 22.
New cases ranged from the 40s into the 80s every day during the month of April, a time when the coronavirus was climbing in the county and region.
Albany County is not the only county to see sudden sharp increases in case numbers in the past few days. On Tuesday, Schenectady County reported 15 new cases. On Monday, Montgomery County said its positivecase tally had jumped from 111 to 132 cases in one week. Many of those cases were attributed to family gatherings, graduation parties and out-of-state travel.
“What happened was when we didn’t see spikes, people became complacent,” Whalen said.
“This is what we feared might happen, and it did come to pass. And now we have to double back down on those messages,” she said, meaning people need to wear masks when they cannot socially distance from others.