Coronavirus zones of yellow, orange and red are being enacted across New York state as Thanksgiving approaches. According to Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. is seeing an average of 172,000 new virus cases a day, the figure nearly doubling since the end of October.
Schenectady County Manager Rory Fluman says there have been 63 new cases overnight.
"So the number of folks that have been afflicted with COVID have not yet overburdened our Ellis hospital, which is a good thing. Currently on quarantine, we have 771 people, and 378 people right now that are on isolation. So think about those numbers. To date we've had for over 14,000 people in Schenectady County, and isolation or quarantine, we've tested over 143,000 people in Schenectady County for COVID-19."
156,000 people live in Schenectady County.
- Check if your favorite bar, hair salon or even your gym is in the yellow, orange or red zone with the NYS COVID-19 hotspot map. covidhotspotlookup.health.ny.gov/#/home
Albany County Executive Dan McCoy has been stymied by people apparently refusing to comply with contact tracing. He announced an increase of 101 new positive cases since Monday.
"That's 1,640 new positive cases since November 1. That's nearly 32% of our total positive cases since the outbreak began, this month alone. Almost a third, if you look at it that way, of the new positive cases, 19 had close contact to a positive case, one was reporting traveling outside the state to our health care workers in 79, 79 don't have a clear source of infection. Now here's the broken record people, yes, please know that Dr. Whalen and her team are just trying to do their job and trying to protect the people this county in the Capital Region because what we do here affects the Capital region and affects the state of New York. So be honest, tell us whether or not who you had contact with so they can do their job. And so our Doc, Dr. Whalen and her team can do their job to stop the spread. It's that simple. I don't know how many times we got to keep saying it."
McCoy added Albany County is inching closer to the 10-day 3 percent positive streak triggering a Yellow Micro-Cluster Zone.
In Saratoga County, Supervisor Matt Veitch has also seen a steady rise in COVID-19 cases.
"295 cases in the last seven days and we're running around a 2.35 percent positivity rate and 7-day rolling average. Our total cases are 1,936. Total deaths are 23. And we have 346 active cases here in Saratoga County."
Saratoga Public Safety Commissioner Robin Dalton:
"If you are exposed to someone on a Monday, if you go to get tested on a Tuesday, you will not have a viral load high enough to test positive. So it’s imperative to wait a minimum of 5 days to go get tested if you've been exposed. If you wait any less than that, if you wait one to five days, it will not pass, you will not have a viral load high enough to register positive."
Ahead of Thanksgiving and the holidays, officials are asking everyone to remain vigilant and do whatever possible to help stop the spread of the virus.
The watchwords to keep everyone safe: test, trace and isolate. New York’s COVID-19 test rate is nearly 3 percent and 47 residents died of the disease on Monday, according to Governor Andrew Cuomo. More than 2,850 people are hospitalized for the coronavirus with over 550 in intensive care.
