ALBANY — The number of new cases in the county continues to break the 200-mark and the number of residents in the hospital and in the ICU continues to increase.
Two county residents died from Tuesday to Wednesday — a woman in her 60s and a man in his 70s, bringing the death toll to 196.
On the plus side, 359 people who tested positive recovered from Tuesday to Wednesday, according to County Executive Dan McCoy during a press briefing.
From Wednesday to Thursday, there were 218 new cases bringing the total to 9,702 since the pandemic took hold in March. As of Thursday, there were 110 residents in the hospital, a net decrease of three from Wednesday. There were 23 in the ICU, unchanged from Wednesday. The number of residents hospitalized peaked at 113 on Monday.
“Any hopes of seeing a continued downward trend of the number of residents currently hospitalized from the virus were dashed today, as we saw an alarming record 18 new hospitalizations in just a 24-hour period. On top of that, we still have a record number of people in intensive care,” McCoy said.
He said hospitals in the Capital District region do have a plan in place to avoid stretching capacity past acceptable limits and are putting on hold some elective surgeries but it the ability to adequately care for COVID-19 patients relies as much on staff as available beds.
But, the eight-county Capital District region has dodged the microcluster designation that would lead to more restrictions and forcing businesses to scale back capacity.
The number of county employees reporting to their respective offices every day is at about 45 percent with a number of departments conducting all business remotely, but McCoy said he will be forcing more to stay home, particularly in the Department of Social Services.
“I can no longer afford to have that many people in the building,” he said while urging private employers to have their employees work remotely too.
