County officials are urging people not to succumb to fatigue once again due to coronavirus cases and hospital admissions in the capital area.
Amid the full court press for public vaccinations in the area, officials have warned that precautionary measures will be taken very soon as the area has not yet received herd immunity and highly transmissible strains of the virus are found in New York.
In Warren County, where the number of COVID-19s is relatively low compared to more populated areas, the percentage of people who tested positive for the virus rose 31 percent in the past week, officials said Wednesday. County Health Services Director General Jones Jones said indoor gatherings where people have gathered for meals have been linked to a number of recent cases.
“I am amazed at the increase in cases that we are seeing with people who are not careful,” he said. “People drop their guards down very soon.”
Meanwhile, Albany County Executive Dan McCoy warned Wednesday that the county is seeing an increase in hospital admissions. The county, like many others in the region, has seen a steady decline in hospital admissions, with cases of the virus dropping to record highs in January.
“Unfortunately the number of county residents in the hospital is starting to go in the wrong direction,” McCoy said. “In the last six days, we have admitted 21 current hospitals and moved to 30. With the presence of a highly contagious UK and now Brazilian variant in New York, we need to keep our guards on and make sure we don’t see. This worrying trend continues. ”
Until recently, new cases of coronavirus in the capital area had been experiencing a month-long plateau. That seems to have changed in the last week.
A Times Union analysis of data provided by eight local counties showed that the Capital Region averaged 216 cases of the virus on Tuesday, compared to the recent low of 188 on March 15. The daily share of people who test positive for the virus has been below or below 2 percent in the region since mid-February. On Tuesday, that share surpassed 2 percent for the first time since Feb. 18.
Hospitalization, which tends to delay the transition, has also begun to climb. Capital Region hospitals reported treating 110 coronavirus patients on Tuesday, up from 106 the day before and the latest low of 90 on March 17. However, this trend is coming very soon. The seven-day rolling average of daily hospital admissions in the area has hovered around 100 for the past two weeks.
Local officials are urging residents of the Capital Region to be vaccinated if they qualify, as more contagious forms are spreading here in the U.S., including New York.
“We’re seeing a third wave in other countries,” said Albany County Health Commissioner Dr. Elizabeth Whale said last week. The word “third wave” is not something we want to think about, but it is definitely a possibility and we see this very conversational tension and we see it spread to different parts of the country and other countries, this is the one for us. Big concern. “
As of Wednesday, 32 percent of people in the eight-county area had received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine and 16 percent had been fully vaccinated, according to the state vaccine tracker.
“Please continue to wear masks, socially distance, cough and sneeze into your elbows, and get tested,” McCoy said Wednesday. “We still need to use these practices until we vaccinate more people.”
