Two more deaths in Albany County
But new COVID-19 cases trend downward from earlier in week
The county reported two more deaths caused by COVID -19 Sunday, marking 12 Albany County residents who have died after contracting coronavirus in the past week.
Both deaths reported from overnight Saturday were women, one in her 50s and the other in her 70s — bringing the county ’s total death toll since the pandemic began to 180.
There were some positives, however, with other numbers released Sunday.
New cases continued to trend slightly downward from previous daily highs in the 200s earlier in the week, and hospitalizations were down Sunday.
On Sunday the state also reported that the Capital Region had among the lowest
proportion of hospitalized patients to residents of all regions of the state on Saturday, at .02 percent. However, our region was in the middle of the pack for percentage of people testing positive — 5.62 percent, which was also the same as Long Island.
There were 173 new positive cases in Albany County on Sunday, with the five-day average decreasing from 194.8 to 188.4, County Executive Dan Mccoy announced in a press release.
Of the new cases, 156 did not have a clear source of infection — an ongoing trend in the county that officials attribute to growing community spread, people having multiple interactions
with others while unmasked, and people declining to reveal their contacts.
Fourteen individuals who contracted the virus had close contact with positive cases, and three are health care workers or residents of congregate settings (not Shaker Place Rehabilitation and Nursing Center).
Though the county has seen 12 new deaths from COVID -19 in the past week, it has also seen its lowest number of hospitalizations in recent days.
Five new hospitalizations were reported overnight, bringing the total number of current hospitalizations due to the virus to 80 — a decrease from Saturday ’s 15 new inpatients and 86 total hospitalizations, and the lowest number the county has seen all week.
The county hit its peak number of hospitalizations Thursday with 98 patients.
However, the number of patients in the intensive care unit has hovered in the teens, with twelve patients in the intensive care unit Sunday, down one from Saturday.
“The vaccine is almost here but we must continue to do our best to protect ourselves and others by not going out unless it’s necessary, and when we do, wear our masks properly, stay six feet away from others, cough and sneeze into our elbows and wash our hands frequently,” Mccoy said in his press release. “We will get through this together.”
While Sunday ’s number of new cases is a slight reprieve from recordbreaking numbers that topped 200 during the week, the spikes seen earlier in the week are reflected in the five-day average of new cases, which is lingering at a count at least 20 cases higher than the county was seeing before.