County sees 4 deaths in 1 day

Schenectady County also has 115 new COVID cases

COVID -19 claimed the lives of four Schenectady County residents in the span of 24 hours, a day when the county also saw 115 new cases, according to the county.

The four who died Thursday were a man and woman in their 80s, a man in his 60s and a man in his 70s.

In Albany County, officials on Friday said they recorded more than 200 new coronavirus cases for the third straight day.

While no one died overnight, 14 more people were hospitalized by the virus, leaving the county with 104 residents needing hospital care. Twenty-one of them were in intensive care, an increase from 18 on Thursday.

Those numbers broke records set the previous day, said County Executive Daniel Mccoy during his daily media briefing on the pandemic.

“This is the second day in a row that we’ve had a record number of people in hospital at one time because of this virus,” Mccoy said Friday, adding hospitalizations have been trending up since Dec. 13. “Unfortunately we’re seeing more people going into our ICU and more people going into the hospital with higher numbers.”

Mccoy also reported that the county saw 220 new cases between Thursday and Friday, the third consecutive day above 200. On Thursday, the county reported 222 new

cases and on Wednesday it was 205.

Of the new positive cases, 22 were exposed to people who contracted COVID -19. Among the new cases were 22 are health care workers. There is no “clear source of infection” for 176, added the county executive who was joined at the briefing by Nosa Aigbe Lebarty, CEO and chief medical officer at Central Med Urgent Care on Central Avenue in Colonie.

“It’s here, it’s going up, and we’re going to see these numbers unfortunately continue to grow over 200 for the next couple of weeks especially with Christmas and (Hanukkah) and all the other holidays,” he said.

To date, Albany County has tallied 8,747 cases.

Albany County expects to receive its first shipments of vaccinations next week. The doses will be administered to residents and employees of the county’s nursing home, Shaker Place.

The expected arrival of the vaccination — doses were given out earlier this week at Albany Medical Center Hospital and other hospitals around the state — prompted a discussion Friday about inoculations for the general public.

Lebarty said he understands people are skeptical about taking the vaccine in part because of how fast it was approved. But he said the vaccine is safe and he will be taking it.

“As a medical provider, as a medical professional, you can have that anxiety but I don’t think you should be afraid to take it,” he said “This virus does not behave the way that we think it should be behaving. It doesn’t behave the way that any virus should be behaving actually.”

School impact of coronavirus

The Schenectady school district announced that from Monday, Dec. 21 to Jan. 8, all classes will be transitioned to remote learning. There will be no in-person, on-site instruction during this time.

The change is due to COVID - related staffing issues, the district said.