Albany County coronavirus update, December 17

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — County Executive Dan McCoy updated residents on the latest in Albany County’s COVID-19 response Thursday morning. McCoy said that with 222 new positive cases since Wednesday, there have been a total of 8,536 cases in the county since the outbreak began.

The previous record for new cases—set last week and tied on Wednesday—in the county in one day was 205. McCoy also announced five additional deaths from COVID complications overnight: a woman in her 70s, two women and a man in their 80s, and a man in his 90s. Albany County’s death toll is now 188.

There are 1,601 active cases in the county, and the five-day average for new daily positives is 186.4. McCoy said that two of the new positives had traveled out of state, 12 live or work in a health care setting, 38 reported close contact with other positives, and 170 had not clear source of infection.

Mandatory quarantines increased to 3,245. Of the 29,641 people to have completed quarantine so far, 6,935 tested positive and recovered.

“And while we bounce back from the storm, we’re still grappling with the COVID crisis on our hands, as we see our daily positive cases and the number of residents hospitalized reach record levels. County hospitalizations have been trending upwards since Friday, reaching its peak of 100 today. The only way we’re going to turn this around is by staying home as much as possible, avoiding large gatherings and wearing a mask when out in public,” he continued.

With 15 new hospitalizations overnight, there are 100 county residents currently hospitalized from the virus—another record. Eighteen patients are in the ICU.

McCoy was joined by Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan to discuss the ongoing winter storm response efforts. “Our Department of Public Works plows have working throughout the night to clear our roads after we got hit with at least 15 inches of snow, and it looks like their work is nearly finished. We still encourage people to stay safe and off the roads unless necessary to allow that to happen,” said McCoy.