ALBANY — Two more county residents died of COVID-19 from Sunday to Monday, bringing the total to 14.
According to County Executive Dan McCoy, the man and woman who died were in their 70s and both had underlying health issues. All but one of the 14 who had died since the outbreak started were older than 60 and all had underlying health concerns.
As of Monday, there were 475 confirmed cases in Albany County, up 22 from Sunday. There are 638 under mandatory quarantine and 74 under precautionary quarantine. There are 38 hospitalized with 16 in the ICU.
Statewide, there were 671 deaths from Sunday to Monday bringing the total to 10,056 according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo during his daily briefing. It is down from a high of April 8 when 799 people died. The people who did die likely went into the hospital days or weeks ago and the numbers related to hospitalizations continues to drop including the three-day average of new hospitalizations and the number of people on a ventilator.
The number of positive cases in Albany County is creeping up as community testing is ramped up. A community testing site at UAlbany has been going since April 6 and data should be compiled and released sometime this week.
According to Dr. Elizabeth Whalen, head of the county Health Department, of the 475 positive cases, 216 people have recovered. She said when a person does test positive, and is one of the majority does not require hospitalization, the county Health Department will check on that individual every day for at least two weeks or as long as symptoms persist.
Two weeks ago, on March 30, there were 199 confirmed cases in Albany County, according to McCoy during that day’s press briefing.
As of Monday, April 13, Whalen said, there have been 1,235 who have come out from under mandatory quarantine. People are placed under mandatory quarantine when they are living with someone who has been diagnosed or has had prolonged exposure, within six feet, of someone who has tested positive.
“While we have those numbers that demonstrate of people who have who have recovered, and people who have come out of quarantine, we don’t have assurances that we can come out of this and resume any kind of life as it was before this began,” she said.
She said there will be an announcement of more test sites opening in the Capital District sometime this week.
As of Sunday, there were 199 cases in Schenectady County, 196 cases in Saratoga County and 105 cases in Rensselaer County.
