Deadliest 48 hours in Ulster

County has seen 11 deaths in past 2 days, bringing total to 35, executive says

KINGSTON, N.Y. » Five more residents at Ten Broeck Commons nursing home have died, bringing the death toll in Ulster County from COVID-19 to 35 on Thursday and marking the deadliest 48 hours in the county since the first case of the coronavirus was discovered in March, the Ulster County Executive’s Office said Thursday.

The additional deaths bring the total number of residents to die from the coronavirus at the nursing home to nine, and includes deaths at the facility reported Wednesday and Tuesday.

The first coronavirus-related death at Ten Broeck Commons, which is located on Leggs Mills Road in the town of Ulster hamlet of Lake Katrine was announced Tuesday. Three others were announced the following day.

In the past two days, Ulster County has seen 11 coronavirus-related deaths, Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan said Thursday.

“That’s the worst by far 48 hour stretch since the beginning of COVID,” Ryan said Thursday during a Facebook town hall.

Ulster County saw its first positive case of the coronavirus on March 8.

“We knew this might be a possibility, that as many people have been battling COVID for weeks, they might succumb and unfortunately we’re seeing that,” Ryan said.

Ryan said all the residents at Ten Broeck Commons, as well as the residents of the Wingate in the town of Lloyd, have been tested for COVID-19. He said the county has requested 2,000 additional testing kits from the state, which, he said, will enable the county to test all the residents at the other 11 nursing homes in Ulster County.

There have been 1,338 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Ulster County since the outbreak began, according to the dashboard. Additionally, 5,285 people in the county have tested negative for the virus and 452 people who had it have recovered.

As of Thursday, there were 25 residents hospitalized because of the virus. While Ryan was unwilling to say that the downward trend of hospitalizations over the last few days was anything more than an aberration, he said it was “still good news.”

Ryan said that the county is seeing between 30 and 40 new cases of the coronavirus each day, but attributed much of that to increased testing being done throughout the county, adding that 400 residents have been tested at the Midtown Kingston site since it opened on Monday.

Overall, he said, roughly 3 percent of the county population has been tested to date, “so we need to do way more testing.”

Although the number of cases in the county continues to rise, Ryan said projections now show the county is tracking closer to the “best-case scenario” of roughly 1,600 positive cases by May 1.

“I’m certain ... the reason we continue to see these numbers go down and the reason we are along the best-case rather than the worst-case (scenario) is because of you all,” Ryan said. “The less we can of course spread, the less folks we’re going to have to mourn the loss of as we go forward.”

Ryan said that he has received an “overwhelming response” from business and community leaders interested in working with him on his Economic Resilience plan to reopen the county economy, which he announced Tuesday, adding that one of the working groups is already looking at how to help families recover economically from the impacts of the coronavirus.

He said since launching Project Resilience, more than $2.5 million has been raised and 88,000 prepared meals from 160 restaurants across the county have been delivered to thousands of households. Additionally, he said, groceries to prepare and additional 20,000 meals have been distributed.

The latest COVID-19 case totals and death tolls reported elsewhere in the Mid-Hudson Valley are as follows.

• Dutchess County: 2,773 cases, 37 deaths.

• Orange County: 8,780 cases, 311 deaths.

• Columbia County: 175 cases, 13 deaths.

• Greene County: 135 cases, five deaths.

• Sullivan County: 845 cases, 22 deaths.