Albany County officials: We need more test kits now!
ALBANY, N.Y. » The need for additional COVID-19 test kits is paramount in Albany County.
That was the message voiced by County Executive Dan McCoy and Albany County Health Commissioner Dr. Elizabeth Whalen, Thursday morning.
“The fact that we are not doing widespread testing in the public is a concern that these numbers are as high as they are because we know that these numbers at this point reflect positive either health care workers or inpatients,” Whalen opined.
Those numbers according to McCoy are 166 positive cases, 566 under mandatory quarantine and 247 people under precautionary quarantine.
“We have 15 individuals now that are hospitalized,” McCoy said, adding one of those latest patients is a two-month- old.
“We have six adults in ICU, and one in pediatric ICU,” McCoy added on the patients which range from that aforementioned two-month-old to those in their 90’s.
Albany County is also attempting to track down about 10 or so people who may have attended mass at the Victory Bible Church at 21 Hackett Blvd. in Albany on March 15, from at 12:30 and 2 p.m.
McCoy also illustrated the numbers with a graph but cautioned going forward they will need more test kits to accurately decipher the number of cases.
“Steadily since this started March 12 to today, you can see the numbers have climbed. The problem is the testing has pretty much come to a halt other than necessities. So I don’t want people to think out there that that’s our number because it’s probably much higher than that because of test kits,” McCoy explained.
“I call on the governor and the federal government to get us the test kits, so we can continue to move forward,” McCoy added in his plea for more test kits.
Whalen echoed the sentiment on the vital need for more test kits.
“I will continue to advocate for community-based testing. In places where containment has been effective, there are two pillars to this, community mitigation and widespread testing. We need to do widespread testing so that our mitigation strategies are more effective,” Whalen stressed.
“Without that, we can continue to encourage people to stay home and we do continue to do that but the testing is a piece that we really need to consider how we can implement. We need to get tests. We need to get tests, and we need to be able to do widespread testing in the public,” Whalen emphasized on the need for more test kits.
In lieu of testing, Whalen reiterated the need for people to heed public health safety precautions to reduce the strain on hospitals.
“As I said yesterday we are looking at is happening in New York [City], it is just down the road. We are not far behind,” Whalen cautioned.
To that end, while area hospitals remain in good shape at the moment, an eventual surge may not be far down the road, according to Whalen.
“Our hospitals at this moment, I’m in touch with Albany Medical Center, who is on a call every morning with the local hospitals and I’m reassured at this point that we still have a good supply of hospital beds, a good supply of ICU units, and a good supply of available ventilators,” Whalen noted on the current status of hospital capabilities.
“But again, when we look to our downstate partners, when we look at how this has rolled out in other areas, we know that we may not be in this position for long and we are actively planning for the surge that we do anticipate. We will continue to do this, and we continue to ask the public to do their part,” Whalen added.