Albany County to submit reopening plan
ALBANY, N.Y. » Albany County Executive Dan McCoy said his office plans to submit a reopening plan to the state by Wednesday.
On Sunday, McCoy said the county currently meets five of the seven metrics outlined by the governor’s office. McCoy said he expects to reach the sixth metric later this week.
Below are the regional guidelines for reopening New York, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. CDC Guidelines 1. CDC Guidelines: Based on CDC recommendations, regions must experience a 14-day decline in hospitalizations and deaths on a 3-day rolling average. Regions with few COVID cases cannot exceed 15 new total cases or 5 new deaths on a 3-day rolling average. A region must have fewer than two new COVID patients admitted per 100,000 residents per day.
2. Priority Industries for Reopening: Businesses in each region will re-open in phases. Phase One • Construction • Manufacturing and wholesale supply chain
• Select retail using curbside pickup only Phase Two • Professional services • Finance and insurance • Retail • Administrative support • Real estate and rental leasing Phase Three • Restaurants and food service • Hotels and accommodations Phase Four • Arts, entertainment and recreation • Education 3. Business Precautions: Each business and industry must have
a plan to protect employees and consumers, make the physical work space safer and implement processes that lower risk of infection in the business.
• Adjust workplace hours and shift design as necessary to reduce density in the workplace
• Enact social distancing protocols
• Restrict non-essential travel for employees
• Require all employees and customers to wear masks if in frequent contact with others
• Implement strict cleaning and sanitation standards
• Enact a continuous health screening process for individuals to enter the workplace
• Continue tracing, tracking and reporting of cases
• Develop liability processes
4. Building Health Care Capacity: To maintain the phased re-opening plan, each region must have at least 30 percent total hospital beds and ICU beds available after elective surgeries resume. This is coupled with the new requirement that hospitals have at least 90 days of PPE stockpiled
5. Testing Regimen: Regions must implement a testing regimen that prioritizes symptomatic persons and individuals who came into contact with a symptomatic person, and conducts frequent tests of frontline and essential workers. Each region must have the capacity to conduct 30 diagnostic tests for every 1,000 residents per month. Regions must maintain an appropriate number of testing sites to accommodate its population and must fully advertise where and how people can get tested. The region must also use the collected data to track and trace the spread of the virus.
6. Tracing System: Regions must have a baseline of 30 contact tracers for every 100,000 residents, and additional tracers based on the projected number of cases in the region. The region must also monitor the regional infection rate throughout the re-opening plan.
7. Isolation Facilities: Regions must present plans to have rooms available for people who test positive for COVID-19 and who cannot selfisolate
McCoy said they are currently having a hard time with the contact tracing metric, however, he said they are formulating a plan with Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple to have EMS officials help with contact tracing.
“I’m hoping that we hit the apex and that we’re on the slope down,” McCoy said.
“[Reopening] is only going to work with everybody following [the guidelines],” McCoy added.
Meanwhile, there are now 1,345 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 in Albany County. Additionally, there are now 971 people under mandatory quarantine and 15 people under precautionary quarantine. To date, 3,154 individuals have completed quarantine, with 813 of them having tested positive and recovered. The death toll for the county now stands at 59.
With 28 people now hospitalized, the hospitalization rate for Albany County stands at 2.08%, down slightly from 2.09% yesterday. The number of those individuals who are in Intensive Care Units (ICU) is seven. There have been no new hospitalizations in 24 hours.
Shaker Place has a total of 53 residents who have tested positive including 2 who have recovered; 14 employees have tested positive and remain out, while 12 others have been cleared to return to work.
“We continue to make progress as we work on our regional plan to reopen and one component that is great news today is that there have not been any new hospitalizations in 24 hours. That helps to put us another step closer to getting people back to work,” McCoy said. “And while I am wishing all moms a Happy Mother’s Day, I want to remind everyone to do it safely. If your mom doesn’t live with you, call her, give her a virtual hug or drive by and wave at her through the window. Be safe. Now is not the time to have a family gathering which could expose everyone there to an unwelcome guest… the COVID-9 virus.”
“Things are improving. We continue to investigate complaints about social distancing and businesses being open that shouldn’t be but they have been largely unfounded,” Apple said. “Something I hadn’t seen in my 33 years with the department is the temporary mobile morgue we had to set up for a short time. It is closed now, but that was not something I ever thought I’d see.”
“I also think it’s important to push disinfecting and washing your masks,” Apple added. “It’s very important to clean those.”
McCoy also thanked the Cyprus Shriners of Glenmont for their donation of hand sanitizer to the county for distribution to those who need it.