Albany County confirms two new deaths
Albany County Executive Dan McCoy confirmed two new COVID-19 linked deaths of county residents during his press conference Monday morning.
The two deceased are a woman in her 70s, who was a resident of a congregate setting, and a man in his 80s, who was not a resident of a congregate setting. Both had multiple preexisting underlying health conditions.
Those latest deaths increased the county death toll to 138 since pandemic numbers began being tracked back in March.
Additionally, McCoy confirmed seven new positive coronavirus cases. Encompassed within the cases are three that had close contact with other positive cases, one is a healthcare worker and three did not have a clear source of infection.
There are 101 active cases in the county and 1,063 people quarantined. The five- day average for new daily positives is 16.6.
On the hospitalization front, there was one new hospitalization overnight. In total there are 10 residents hospitalized and two patients in the ICU. The hospitalization rate for the county is 0.30%.
During the press conference, McCoy discussed recent upticks in cases. The county executive was also flanked by University at Albany President Havidán Rodríguez and The College of Saint Rose Interim President Marcia White, both of whom spoke to their ongoing testing efforts.
“The testing that was done, it’s not just about students. It’s about making sure that the residents of Albany County and Pine Hills feel safe and the fact that we will help stop the spread of COVID,” White stated on the rapid tests administered last week.
“We did 218 tests within two days. Every test came back negative. The students received their results within 30 minutes. It was a win-win for all of us,” White continued on the testing which yielded zero positive tests.
Since the beginning of the fall semester, The College of Saint Rose has seen four confirmed positive cases, three students and one employee.
“This is not the time to be complacent. We have to give it our best because we all deserve it. And if you think this is life and death, it is,” White added on the need to keep taking responsible measure to thwart the virus.
Rodríguez also spoke to the University at Albany’s testing successes from last week, which also saw more than 100 students partake in pop-up site tests established last Thursday.
“We are also clearly very pleased that there were no positive tests but as President White said, this does not mean that we can let our guard down or become complacent about what we need to do,” Rodriguez said regarding the results.
“At U-Albany, we continue to strongly focus on our mitigation efforts. We continue to ramp up
our testing capacity to learn as much as we can about the virus’ presence in our campus community,” Rodriguez continued on their strategy moving forward.
The good news comes as U-Albany looks to forge ahead for the next six weeks through the end of the semester.
“We just passed a major milestone with our pool surveillance testing program with over 11,500 saliva samples since September 1. As of this morning, the RNA Institute has analyzed 11,529 saliva samples with a presumed positivity rate of 0.56%,” Rodriguez noted on the decreased rate of cases.
“Positive cases that we identified were properly acted upon for diagnostics testing, quarantine, and isolation where necessary. Our campus is also pilottesting wastewater testing to see what kind of data we can get from that and if it allows us to continue our mitigation efforts,” Rodriguez continued on their protocols and steps moving forward, which also includes more flu shots.
“Next month we will also move from bi-weekly to weekly pool testing of all students, faculty, and staff coming to campus,” Rodriguez added on their ability to ramp up testing capacity in the near future.
Both campuses are looking to finish out the fall semester prior to Thanksgiving and are seeking to return for the spring semester in February.
“I couldn’t be more proud to have Albany County partner with the University at Albany and The College of Saint Rose to bring testing directly to the Pine Hills neighborhood the past week,” McCoy said. “Of the 218 COVID tests given to students, none of them came back positive.
“I want to thank Presidents Havidán Rodríguez and Marcia J. White for their leadership, the local hospitals, the NYS Health Department and our healthcare workers for supporting the effort and the students for their commitment doing the right thing and controlling the spread of the virus.”
Yet, McCoy also tempered that news by cautioning there’s still a long slog ahead with the virus.
“However, as I’ve said before, just because our higher education institutions are no longer the main source of our positive cases, doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods yet, as we can see by the latest two deaths since just over a week ago. My condolences go out to the families of these residents and the families of the 136 other residents who have suffered losses over the last nearly seven months,” McCoy added.