Albany County confirms new death
Albany County saw its COVID-19 related death toll rise on Monday. Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy confirmed the death of a woman in her 80s, during his Monday morning press briefing.
The announcement brought the confirmed death toll to 181 since numbers began being tracked back in March. It also marks the sixth death of a county resident since Friday.
“We have to be careful. I know people have fatigue, I know they’re tired but the reality [is the virus] is still there,” McCoy stated.
The county executive also confirmed 11 new hospitalizations overnight. There are 86 county residents presently hospitalized, a net increase of six. Plus, 13 patients are in the ICU, up from 12 on Sunday.
“Our hospitalizations, it’s one of the things that we continue to watch,” McCoy said.
“We [ have] two people under the age of 25, one under the age of 17. We continue to look at the hospitalizations now between 25 and 49 there’s 12 currently in the hospital. In the age 50 to 74 is 40,” McCoy con
tinued on the wider age range of county residents now being hospitalized.
“Again we’re starting to see alarmingly that number that we identified early on that have spread quicker than any other age group, now it’s starting to affect them a little bit differently,” McCoy added on more younger people begging to be hospitalized with the virus compared to the spring.
Presently, Albany County has 1,639 active cases. Plus, 3,244 people are under mandatory quarantine.
The county executive also confirmed 154 new cases. Encompassed within the new positive cases are 138 who either refused to or could not disclose a clear source of infection, 14 who had close contact with other positive cases, one who reported traveling out of state and one who is a healthcare worker or resident of a congregate setting.
McCoy also detailed what some of the new micro-cluster zone metrics could mean for Albany County, should it fall into that set of criteria.
According to McCoy, an 85% capacity at hospitals would trigger an “orange zone.”
In addition, if the percent positive rate is above 4% for more than 10 days, salons, barbershops and gyms would be able to stay open but gyms would be restricted to 25% capacity. Plus, restaurants and bars for indoor dining may be limited to 25% capacity as well, depending on if the hospitalization rate stabilizes.
“As we get the guidance from the governor’s office or through our control room, we’ll put it out to you but yes, it does continue to change,” McCoy added regarding being able to adapt and adjust as changes come down from the state.