Gov launches 5-part winter surge plan

 From NYS Governor’s Office

If you don’t want to give up your cloth mask, the governor advised double-masking with a more protective surgical mask underneath, and demonstrated with her Buffalo Bills mask on top.

ALBANY COUNTY — “This is all geared toward keeping the economy open,” said Governor Kathy Hochul last Friday as she unveiled her five-part Winter Surge Plan 2.0 at an Albany press conference.

The first component is keeping schools open, which involves testing students who have been exposed to COVID-19 so that, if they test negative and are symptom-free, they can return to school.

The state has secured 37 million tests of which 5.56 million had arrived.

Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy said at his Friday morning press conference that, when the school tests arrive, they would go to BOCES, the Board of Cooperative Educational Services, for distribution.

The county’s health commissioner, Elizabeth Whalen, described schools as controlled environments and noted that there is a statewide mask mandate for schools.

“We have not seen a significant degree of spread within the school environment that we have seen outside the school environment,” she said.

Whalen also said, “Our vaccination rate in children is still very low.” She noted that, for over a month, children between the ages of 5 and 11 have been eligible for vaccines and said that their vaccination is needed “to stem community transmission.”

Hochul’s plan also sets up a new requirement for all students in the State University of New York or City University of New York schools to get booster shots. Masks must be worn in indoor public spaces and all faculty must be vaccinated. To return to campus after winter break, students will have to submit a negative COVID test.

The second part of the plan extends the mandate that businesses must require masks or vaccination of patrons and staff for two more weeks — until Feb. 1. Hochul said she was “very willing to reassess” if the landscape changes.

McCoy said the county’s website to report violations went live on Dec. 30 but he stressed that getting compliance with the mask-or-vax mandate is not just about enforcement.

“It’s about education. It’s about the mental health of people,” he said.

McCoy also said that the county has just received guidance on how to apply for a share of the $65 million the state is providing for counties enforcing the mandate.

New testing sites are being launched statewide — including one at the old Ruby Tuesday’s restaurant in Guilderland’s Crossgates Mall — on Jan. 4. On Monday, Hochul announced community testing sites will also be opened at state university campuses, including Albany’s.

Tuesday evening, Hochul’s office released details on the 10 new university testing sites. The site at the uptown UAlbany campus will be held in the Colonial Dining Hall at 1400 Washington Ave. Beginning Jan. 7, the hours of operation are 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Appointments may be scheduled here.

The third part of Hochul’s plan is to prevent severe illness and death by supporting hospitals.

Once the state receives the antiviral drug — taken as a pill — from Pfizer called Pavloxid, the state will distribute it.

New York’s acting health commissioner, Mary Bassett, called the two antiviral drugs recently given emergency authorization by the Food and Drug Administration “a huge advance” as it will keep people out of hospitals. The drug will be distributed to pharmacies “according to disease burden” rather than by population, she said.

Currently, she said, there is “a production challenge,” meaning supplies are limited. She called the current supply “miniscule.”

Preventing severe illness and death also involves boosting hospital capacity and Hochul’s Nov. 26 order to end non-essential surgeries at hospitals with less than 10-percent staffed bed capacity is being continued. 

More federal teams will be deployed in New York State and 80 National Guard members will start classes on Jan. 5 to be trained as emergency medical technicians.

The state has already deployed medically trained National Guard members to help nursing-home staff. McCoy said on Friday that the county’s nursing home, Shaker Place, has had six soldiers working there for a month. He said he welcomed “a little relief” for the workers who had borne such a heavy burden throughout the pandemic.

Hochul said the state’s 606 nursing homes had been surveyed and some incapacitated residents haven’t had permission slips signed for booster shots. The fourth part of her plan is to expand access to vaccines and boosters.

Each nursing home will have to come up with a plan to increase vaccination and booster rates among residents.

St. Peter’s Health Partners Chief Medical Director of Acute Care Thea Dalfino said at Friday’s county press conference, “Today we have 82 COVID patients in the hospital, the vast majority of whom are not vaccinated.” She said the same was true of the 11 patients in intensive-care units and the six on ventilators.

Hochul, at her conference, displayed a chart showing how hospitalized patients are mostly not vaccinated.

Hochul noted that 95 percent of New Yorkers have received at least one shot but urged follow-through with a second shot and a booster shot.

She also said that the age group that is least vaccinated — outside of children under age 5 who aren’t eligible — is the 5-to-11 age group.

Bassett noted that, on Dec. 24, her department issued an alert on the rise in pediatric hospitalizations. 

Although those cases were mostly centered downstate, McCoy said on Friday that there were a few pediatric cases now at Albany Medical Center.

Bassett said that, statewide, between Dec. 5 and 11, New York State had 70 pediatric hospitalizations for cases of COVID-19; this week, that rose to 299.

Only about 18 percent of children in the 5-to-11 age group are fully vaccinated, Bassett said, and under 30 percent have had one dose.

“It doesn’t have to be,” said Hochul, urging parents to have their children vaccinated.

“I don’t think we should think of political lines hardening around children,” said Bassett.

Bassett also said that herd immunity — that is, enough people being vaccinated or having antibodies from having contracted the virus that normal life could resume — “is no longer a useful construct with a virus that mutates as quickly as this one.”

The fifth and final part of Hochul’s plan is to work with local partners, using a collaborative approach.

“They’re the boots on the ground,” said Hochul, citing her years of work in local government. Resources will be provided by the state to entities like county emergency managers and local school boards.

Hochul concluded, “2022 is the year we beat this pandemic.”

More Regional News

  • The state-level legislation — all the bills are still in committee — would incentivize faster responses to Freedom of Information Law requests, compel governments to reveal how they handle these requests, limit the FOIL exemptions offered to businesses, and put the burden of attorney’s fees on governments that are found to have unreasonably denied a request. 

  • In the midst of the early spring snow and ice storm on Sunday, Governor Kathy Hochul announced “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced a G4 electromagnetic storm is currently occurring over much of the northern United States, including the State of New York.” NOAA explained on its website that a coronal mass ejection caused by a flare on the Sun on March 23 “arrived at Earth as expected on 24 Mar. Effects are likely to linger but decrease coming into 26 Mar.”

  • More than 70 high school students will represent Capital Region BOCES on March 18 in a regional c

The Altamont Enterprise is focused on hyper-local, high-quality journalism. We produce free election guides, curate readers' opinion pieces, and engage with important local issues. Subscriptions open full access to our work and make it possible.