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Capital Region COVID-19 Numbers Continue To Climb

COVID-19 was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China and has now been detected in 37 locations across the globe, including in the U.S., according to the CDC.
Composite Image by Dave Lucas (WAMC / cdc.gov)

New COVID-19 numbers are coming in as the pandemic claims more victims in the Albany area.
The Saratoga County Department of Public Health Services says Thursday there are 349 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 10 people hospitalized. Two more county residents have died from the disease — a 78-year-old female from Hadley and a 66-year-old male from Halfmoon, bringing the county death toll to 14.
 

Credit WAMC photo by Dave Lucas
Albany County Executive Dan McCoy holds daily press conferences to give COVID-19 updates.

Albany County Executive Dan McCoy says there are now 1,120 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 in Albany County, an increase of nearly 100 cases since Wednesday.

McCoy said there were two more COVID-19 deaths, a man and a woman, both in their eighties. The death toll for the county now stands at 41.

"We have 907 people under mandatory quarantine. That's up 54 from yesterday. And we have 22 people on our precautionary quarantine, that's down two from yesterday.

Our Shaker Place stays the same, numbers as I've given out every day, except now we have four workers that have recovered at the residence, which is good news.

We have 2286 people that have completed quarantine, and of those 562 tested positive for the virus have recovered. That's up 35 from yesterday, which is good news. There are now 34 people hospitalized with a hospital lease hospitalization rate of 3%."

Shaker Place is the county-run nursing home where 46 people have tested positive and several deaths have been reported.

At Albany Medical Center, Hospital President and CEO Dr. Dennis McKenna says the hospital is "in a good place."

"We have 53 patients currently in the hospital with COVID-19. We have 23, excuse me, 32 of them on the floor. We have 21 of them in the ICU and six of those 21 are on ventilators. The six on the ventilators represents the lowest number we've had on ventilators in quite some time. So our overall population of COVID-19 is down. Our critical care and ventilated patients is down. And we're seeing what I would call a sort of a slow drift down as far as the overall number compared to a week or two ago."

McKenna maintains the hospital is holding its own and still has no plans to furlogh any employees.

Schenectady County now has 472 positive cases with 673 people under quarantine; 318 recoveries and 27 deaths.

Dave Lucas is WAMC’s Capital Region Bureau Chief. Born and raised in Albany, he’s been involved in nearly every aspect of local radio since 1981. Before joining WAMC, Dave was a reporter and anchor at WGY in Schenectady. Prior to that he hosted talk shows on WYJB and WROW, including the 1999 series of overnight radio broadcasts tracking the JonBenet Ramsey murder case with a cast of callers and characters from all over the world via the internet. In 2012, Dave received a Communicator Award of Distinction for his WAMC news story "Fail: The NYS Flood Panel," which explores whether the damage from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee could have been prevented or at least curbed. Dave began his radio career as a “morning personality” at WABY in Albany.
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