Another 11 cases traced to Ualbany

Campus has recorded 104 positive tests since fall semester began

Albany County confirmed 16 new cases of coronavirus Tuesday, 11 of which are associated with the University at Albany.

Thirteen of the 16 cases were people who had close contact with an infected person, the county reported. Another case was traced back to a health care worker or resident of a congregate setting. Two cases could not immediately be traced back to a clear source of infection, the county said.

The Ualbany outbreak has kept county health officials busy in recent weeks.

According to the State University of New York’s COVID-19 tracker, the campus has had 104 cases of the virus among students and staff since the fall semester began. Under state guidelines, if the campus has 100 cases among those who live, work or study on campus within a discrete 14-day time period, it must transition to fully remote learning.

The current time period began Sept. 12 and ends Friday. According to SUNY’S tracker, Ualbany has had 57 cases within this window. Ualbany, which maintains a separate case tracker that is updated each night, showed 66 cases toward the 100-case threshold as of Tuesday morning.

Public health experts say SUNY’S system of tracking cases in discrete time periods is epidemiologically unsound, and recommend tracking cases over a rolling time period such as the past 14 days. Ualbany tracks and publishes cases this way as well, and their tracker showed 107 cases in the past 14 days Tuesday morning — 58 among students living on campus and 49 among those who live off-campus in the Capital Region.

Discrepancies between the SUNY and Ualbany tracker could be explained by the time of day each are updated.

Community-wide testing continues on the Ualbany campus by appointment only for those with or without symptoms. Appointments may be made by calling the state’s hotline at 888-364-3065 or by visiting the state Department of Health website.

Albany County also reported no new hospitalizations overnight. Eight residents remained hospitalized with the virus Tuesday morning. The county has had 2,846 laboratory-confirmed cases of the virus since the pandemic began. On Tuesday, 104 of those cases remained active — a decrease of 11 from Monday.