‘Control room’ stays on the alert
Full reopening by July is target for local officials as state panel hopes to prevent COVID spike
As the Capital Region starts to slowly increase economic activity, the state is taking a day-by-day approach to monitor the spread of COVID-19, declining to commit to any firm metrics to move through phases or reinstate restrictions if progress stops.
The decisions are made in daily 2 p.m. meetings of the Capital Region’s “control room,” a stateappointed group of local officials who oversee the area’s reopening strategy. The region, which faced a slight delay in heading into phase one because of disagreements over reopening requirements, is now focusing on enforcement strategies and other plans to keep numbers low in the hopes of fully reopening the region by early July.
The daily approach allows for some flexibility in how the region responds to any potential increase in cases — but also makes it difficult to predict how and when the region can begin moving through phases. Much like the state’s pandemic response changed rapidly at the beginning of the crisis — with a quick and aggressive change in tone and shutdown decisions — the reopening strategy will likely be similar.
“This is new for everybody,” said Jim
Malatras, the president of SUNY Empire State College and a member of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s coronavirus task force. “There’s no playbook on this.”
The daily control room phone calls are attended by the same 12 people: one official from each of the eight counties in the Capital Region — except Albany, which has two — and then two state representatives and the president of the Capital District Area Labor Federation. Others are invited to the call depending on the day and the topic of the meeting; for example, Thursday’s meeting featured law enforcement officials, who discussed what can be done if a person declines to wear a mask when entering a business.
The meetings usually start with a recap of the region’s health data and whatever announcements Cuomo discussed during his daily coronavirus briefing that day. State representatives then give an update on questions raised the day prior, sometimes with answers, and sometimes with a request for extra time.
Group members then have an opportunity to go around and ask new questions, which state officials either answer or bookmark for the next day. At times, the group will break into discussion and “exchange helpful information about what we’re seeing from various counties,” Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan said.
In all, the meetings take about 30 minutes to an hour, participants said.
“Now that we’re in phase one, we’re still waiting on guidance for phase two,” said Schenectady County Manager Rory Fluman. “In that wait time, the daily meetings become very important because that’s the input that we all give.”
The control rooms were announced May 10 but had been meeting informally for several days prior, county leaders said. Many of the initial meetings centered around what was needed for the Capital Region to begin reopening, as county leaders questioned why the Albany area lagged on two of seven required metrics to begin the process.
As other parts of upstate New York were cleared to begin reopening May 15, Capital Region officials alleged that the state was not correctly tallying daily hospital and death data, wrongfully including residents from other regions that had been transferred to hospitals in the area.
County officials couldn’t verify the data provided by the state and were told that their concerns would be investigated. Malatras said Thursday that the state looked into the questions but found no discrepancies in hospital or death data, which officials retrieve directly from hospitals.
Those frustrations were compounded with a misunderstanding between state and local officials about the metrics needed to reopen. Facing both private and public backlash from leaders in the region, the state altered the requirements to reopen May 17, shifting the timeline to hit the hospitalization and death requirements and also changing the way the state evaluated those data points. The recalibration allowed the Capital Region to begin phase one of reopening — which includes construction, manufacturing, agriculture and curbside pickup at retailers — on Wednesday.
“The focus really is on making sure that we don’t go backwards, because everything that’s been done up to this point has gotten
us through the metrics, and now phase one is underway,” Saratoga County Administrator Spencer Hellwig said.
“We don’t have a hard rule yet, like if you hit X percentage you have to pause. We’re looking at all the different factors right now, and we’ll keep refining it. I don’t think any state, frankly, has come up with a mathematical methodology where things will pause.” — Jim Malatras, president of SUNY Empire State College and a member of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s coronavirus task force
Now, control room meetings are more focused on continuing progress and getting clarification from the state about when certain businesses can reopen or what phases they fall into. Recent questions include how the region will handle graduation ceremonies and whether people can begin camping as the weather gets nicer, county leaders said.
The control room still discusses the reopening criteria every day to make sure that numbers aren’t rolling back, county officials said. But spiking in hospitalizations one day or falling out of one of the metrics — while a “red flag” — doesn’t necessarily mean that the region must shut down again, Malatras said. (And as Albany County Executive Dan Mccoy put it: “It’s almost worse to start opening and then shut down.”)
“How we’re looking at this right now is in its totality, right, so there are a bunch of factors that we’re looking at, and I think, as the governor has said before, we will adapt as needed,” Malatras said.
The criteria that the state leaned on as regions headed toward reopening may not be the same data that officials rely on going forward. Increases in net hospitalizations and daily death rates are both lagging indicators — meaning they can show long-term trends — but those data points are not particularly relevant on a day-to-day basis, he said.
Instead, the state is looking toward gross hospitalizations, hospital capacity and the percentage of diagnostic tests that return positive, which are all better indicators of a region’s current status and infection rate. The state — with input from control rooms, which have a more advisory than decisionmaking role – would consider moving forward or standing still in reopening phases depending on the entirety of an area’s current numbers.
On Wednesday, 2,361 people in the Capital Region were tested for COVID-19, with 40 coming back positive — a return rate of 1.7 percent. A total of 108 people were hospitalized, and area hospitals had about a third of their beds available.
Malatras declined to commit to any firm metrics to move through the phases, as the state had set up for regions to “unpause.” Overall, the state is trying to avoid reinstating the pause order, he said, “because it’s really disruptive.”
“We don’t have a hard rule yet, like if you hit X percentage you have to pause,” he said. “We’re looking at all the different factors right now, and we’ll keep refining it. I don’t think any state, frankly, hascomeupwithamathematical methodology where things will pause.”
There will be a roughly two-week period between phases to make sure that numbers do not rise immensely, but there is also some flexibility in that metric depending on the region, Malatras said. Some regions may be ready to move through phases sooner, he said, but state officials are also considering how to balance the
reopening approach as downstate regions have yet to enter phase one.
The lack of a firm strategy has exasperated some local leaders, who said they struggled to rationalize or keep track of constantly changing messaging from the state.
“(Cuomo is) all over the place, and it’s very frustrating to have to deal with that, because he’s not consistent from day to day, even with his own metrics,” said Rensselaer County Executive Steve Mclaughlin.
But there is one premise everyone can agree on:
The progress the Capital Region makes is dependent on how well residents follow social distancing guidelines, opt to wear masks and wash their hands. If all goes well, the region could enter phase two by the beginning of June, and restaurants could welcome back guests by the middle of the month.
“As you increase activity, what will happen is a function of what we do,” Cuomo said during a Thursday news briefing. “That’s not just rhetorical. … It literally depends on what we do, and everyone has a role to play as we go forward.”