SPIKE IN CASES
Albany County confirms 16 new positive cases Wednesday
ALBANY, N.Y. » One day after reporting zero cases in Albany County, County Executive Dan McCoy confirmed 16 new positive cases of COVID-19 during his Wednesday morning press conference.
Among the new positive cases, seven had close contact with positive cases, two were healthcare workers, one had reported outof-state travel and six did not have a clear source of infection.
“We’ve said this before, it’s like a roller coaster, we go up, we go down, we were hoping four weeks after the Hudson Avenue that this wasn’t going to happen again,” McCoy remarked on the jump in new cases.
McCoy also noted the number of confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 in Albany County to date is now at 2,474. Additionally, the number of people under mandatory quarantine has dropped to 499. The fiveday average for new daily positives has increased to 4.8 from 3.2 Tuesday. There are 31 active cases, up from 22 on Tuesday.
Thus far, 9,263 people have completed quarantine. Of those who completed quarantine, 2,443 of them had tested positive and recovered, an increase of seven.
The number of people hospitalized increased from eight to nine, raising the hospitalization rate from 0.32% to 0.36%. There is still one patient in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Albany County Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Elizabeth Whalen commented on what likely accounted for the increase in positive cases overnight.
“We continue to monitor the cases as they come in. Yesterday was definitely a bit of a blip, but sometimes we find that this can occur. When we get a lot of cases on Tuesday and no cases on Monday, we’re cautious of the fact that the reporting may have been delayed, and we’re diligently doing case investigations to determine if that’s the case,” Whalen said.
“As always, we are identifying all close contacts, making sure that people are isolated as appropriate, and those close contacts are quarantined,” Whalen continued on their contact tracing efforts.
Whalen also encouraged people to continue getting tested.
“We continue to advocate for testing, with the changes that we’re looking at in the county in the next couple of weeks with the resumption of school and universities, it’s going to be very important that we continue the messages around the important behaviors that can prevent COVID spread and we look forward to working with our school and university communities moving forward,” Whalen added.
On the testing front, McCoy announced that Shaker Place will be receiving a
COVID-19 Point- of- Care testing device, to expedite results onsite. According to McCoy, having the device will save the county nearly $10,000 a week.
“The testing kits and nasal tests that will be getting done at Shaker Place, they’re now providing us with a machine. So we can test in-house,” McCoy explained.
“Testing kit for one employee takes less than 15 minutes to turn around. So we can test them, and we’ll know within 15 to 30 minutes depending on the logistics if they’re positive or negative. What does that mean? It means that when we have workers show up, we’re not waiting 10 days,” McCoy noted.
“I want to thank the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration for being a partner to Albany County and helping us continue to protect those who have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19,” Mc
Coy added.
The new testing device comes as the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced Tuesday that weekly antigen tests will be required for staff nationwide in order to receive Medicare and Medicaid funding.
They are also providing $2.5 billion in support of these efforts to all nursing homes and requiring additional reporting of any infections.