COVID variant found in Spa City
County officials urge residents to stay home
Albany County officials are pleading with people to stay home and minimize contact with others as the impact of holiday gatherings on COVID -19 rates threatens to further strain the area’s already-inundated hospitals.
County Executive Dan Mccoy said hospitalizations among county residents hit yet another record Monday, with 161 residents hospitalized with coronavirus, a net increase of 19 overnight. Other counties have also reported record hospitalizations of late, and on Monday, hospitals across the eight-county
Capital Region reported a total of 468 coronavirus patients and the lowest ICU bed capacity rate statewide at 16 percent.
“I know that what happened, what we chose, what we did between Christmas Eve and Christmas and New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day and Kwanzaa and every other holiday that hit us in between — unfortunately with school being out, people got together, people socialized, kids played,” Mccoy said. “It will have a consequence on us going forward.”
County Health Commissioner Elizabeth Whalen said she expects the region could see peak hospitalizations and infections in the next few weeks. The eight-county area has already seen record-breaking average daily caseloads for 44 of the last 55 days. On Sunday, the region’s average daily caseload climbed to 817. A month ago, it was 337.
The surge has fueled both record hospitalizations and deaths. December was the deadliest month of the pandemic to date for Albany County.
“I know that the overall hospital capacity numbers and, in particular, the ICU capacity numbers have been decreasing and are getting to a concerning level,” Whalen said. “There’s no doubt about it. And this is why it’s really important for us to be able to take that individual responsibility on to the degree possible and avoid interactions in public, and wear your mask, and do the things that we’ve been discussing.”
Hospital capacity
The region’s overall hospital bed capacity — not just in its intensive care units — is also one of the lowest in the state at 22 percent, but remains above the 15 percent level that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has warned could trigger a shutdown.
Capital Region hospital officials asserted Monday that they have the space and the staff to take on more patients if need be. Cuomo instructed hospitals to develop plans that would allow them to increase capacity by at least 25 percent within a 72hour window, and many local hospitals say they are ready to do just that.
“We are prepared to do that and have the ability to surge in stages to more than double our usual capacity,” St. Peter’s spokesperson Courtney Weisberg said. “That, of course, is dependent upon availability of staff and how quickly patients continue to come in.”
In the days leading up to Christmas, Capital Region hospitals announced they would be voluntarily pausing nonessential elective procedures to help maintain capacity. Doing so would free up skilled staff who could then be redeployed to COVID -19 and other units if need be.
Hospitals have also been preparing additional space for a surge of COVID -19 patients. Glens Falls Hospital said Monday that it recently reopened and staffed a COVID -19 unit, and Albany Medical Center said it has been adding and removing negative pressure rooms — which are used to prevent airborne transmission — as needed.
“We do believe that the infection and hospitalization rates will continue to increase,” said Albany Med spokesman Matt Markham. “And we all have plans to continue increasing capacity.”
Dr. Richard Falivena, vice president and chief medical and physician integration officer at Saratoga Hospital, said hospitals across the region are on twice-daily calls with each other to discuss capacity and other issues.
The issue is not so much beds, he and other hospital officials said, but the ability to staff those beds.
“Load balancing across all hospitals has been one of the group’s primary objectives, with hospitals accepting transfers when their respective institutions can predictably and safely manage a patient transfer,” he said. “This is a direct result of the regional effort to manage the stress on those hospitals experiencing higher capacity pressure.”
Glens Falls Hospital spokesman Ray Agnew said the hospital relies on a “logistics center” to oversee physical bed capacity and staffing in real time using data analytics from the hospital’s electronic bed board and acuity management system.
“We currently have some capacity and have been able to help other regional hospitals by accepting noncritical transfers,” he said. “We are not accepting transfers from other institutions into the
ICU presently so we can maintain nursing ratios and be sure we have capacity as this current surge continues.”
School reopenings
Also on Monday, Whalen addressed whether she believes the reopening of schools for in-person learning is safe, given the region’s high COVID -19 positivity rate, which dipped slightly to 9.9 percent on Monday. Whalen said she never told school superintendents that reopening directly after the holidays would be safe, as at least one area superintendent claimed this weekend.
Rather, she said, she agreed with concerns about returning to inperson learning directly after the holidays, since students may have traveled and participated in celebrations with people beyond their immediate families. But, she added, it’s up to each school district to decide what’s best for their community given the apparent lower rate of transmission in highly controlled school environments, and the negative impacts of remote schooling and isolation on children who may suffer abuse at home, mental health problems, or hunger, or children with special needs who may go without services.
Other news
Schenectady County announced Monday that another resident — a man in his 80s — has died due to complications from COVID -19. Columbia County also reported another COVID -19 death Monday. Rensselaer County officials also said a 68-year-old Schodack man died from the disease. In Albany County, officials said Monday was the first time since Dec. 22 that they had no new COVID-19 deaths to announce.