Albany County officials are out with the latest numbers on the coronavirus pandemic.
At his Monday morning press conference, County Executive Dan McCoy says, as expected, COVID-19 cases have increased.
"As of today, there were up to 122 cases, confirmed positive cases. We're up to 490 people under mandatory quarantine. That's up from 318 Yesterday. That number changes, obviously, because the more cases and the great job, department of health is doing mapping and tracing everyone, and in the mandatory corner or the un-mandatory quarantine is thought the same, 634 and that's going to change. That's a number like, you know, we don't want to just put any number out there. They have to continue to contact people and figure out where everyone was at. We have seven people that are hospitalized now, putting the average up about 5.7%. And remember, you know, when this all started March 2, we went from two cases toMarch 16, to 15, to yesterday 115, 122 today. Like we said, the testing is going to slow up. We need more test kits. We need the federal government to step up. Get us the kits!"
McCoy is urging residents to get serious about social distancing. He says he's witnessed large groups of kids outside playing basketball and other sports. And he says don't fall for any purported online cures.
"Stop reading Facebook. Stop believing everything you see there. It's not true. If there's a cure, trust me, the main doctors are gonna be out in front telling you."
County Health Commissioner Dr. Elizabeth Whalen urges everyone to heed the call to stay home.
“If in order to contain this, you have to act like you have it and treat your family and treat others as if you have it. At the beginning of the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country, a message that you were hearing from a lot of healthcare providers and a lot of people in public health was that the asymptomatic patients are not necessarily the driver of infection. This was based on knowledge we have of many other viruses. But as we have continued to watch this emerge across the country, and have learned more about it from an epidemiologic perspective, we know that that's no longer the case. That is not the case. There are individuals who are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms that are spreading this in the community."
Across the river, Rensselaer officials say that county is up to 20 cases as of Sunday.
