ALBANY COUNTY — At his Monday press briefing, Governor Andrew Cuomo stressed rebuilding the economy.

“This is unsustainable ...,” he said. “It was never a choice between public health and rebuilding the economy. You have to do both.”

The video briefing was held in Buffalo at the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Cuomo displayed a graph showing the post-holiday high infection rate — of 7.94 on Jan. 4 — has been descending statewide and is now at 5.85 percent.

Hospitalizations typically follow infection rates, with a lag, and Cuomo said hospitalizations have gone down “all across the state.”

Last week, Albany County several times broke its record for hospitalizations.

And on Monday, Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy, in announcing 14 new hospitalizations, increasing to 173 county residents hospitalized with the virus, issued a statement.

“Unfortunately, the number of Albany County residents hospitalized because of COVID remains at near-record levels, and three of them are below the age of 25 years old,” McCoy said. “At the same time, the Capital Region has the lowest hospital and ICU bed availability rates in the entire state, now at 24% and 18% respectively. This isn’t a strong position to be in with the looming threat of a more contagious strain of the virus spreading.”

Cuomo focused on the rate of transmission, Rt, explaining it means how many people are infected by a single person with the virus. At one point, in New York State, Cuomo said, one person was infecting two-and-half other people. “Anything over one, the virus is out of control,” he said.

Currently, Cuomo said, the Rt in New York is now under one and projection rates show the positivity rates will continue to decline.

With the holiday spike coming down, Cuomo concluded, “You can increase economic activity.” 

He also said, “I think we’re at a new place now” and that some restrictions could be reduced.

Vaccine

Besides rebuilding the economy the other two tracks the state is simultaneously following are to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and to vaccinate against it, Cuomo said.

In six weeks, the state has received 1.5 million doses of vaccine from the federal government, he said, and over 91 percent “has been put in arms.”

The state’s shipment for the seventh week will be 250,000 doses as it has been for the last two weeks, less than the 300,000 previously, Cuomo said.

“Don’t schedule an appointment unless you have allocations,” Cuomo warned those administering the shots.

He also urged residents, “If you get an offer too good to be true,” call 833-VAX-SCAM.

The state has 3,000 distribution sites but needs more vaccine, Cuomo said. The mass-vaccination sites could administer 10,000 shots in a day at one site, he asid.

The lack of vaccine, he said, is “a problem across the globe.”

Looking at the state’s public-health failures since the pandemic, Cuomo said, “Plans alone are not enough if you can’t implement them and implement them to scale … We didn’t have the operational capacity,” he said of New York’s response at the start of the pandemic.

Cuomo outlined state plans going forward to solve those problems including its surge-and-flex program for hospitals, its stockpiling of personal protective equipment, its establishment of a public health corps, and its training of the National Guard for border testing.

Cuomo said the new Biden administration “gets it” and will give states projected allocations so they can plan.

Hospital capacity remains a top concern, Cuomo said. And, while hospitals have enough beds, the concern is sick staff members.

Last Monday, Jan. 18, Cuomo said, 63 percent of health-care workers were vaccinated. On Jan. 25, a week later, 72 percent are.

He noted variances among hospitals within the state’s 10 regions and said, “We need the local governments to focus on it.”

In the Capital Region, Albany Medical Center had the highest rate at 85.5 percent and Saratoga Hospital had the lowest at 72.4 percent.

As of Monday afternoon, the Capital Region had administered 86,531 of the 117,640 vaccine doses it had been given, which is 74 percent. Statewide, 71 percent of the state’s 1.9 million doses have been administered.

Cuomo reiterated the way the state distributes the doses of vaccine that it gets from the federal government:

— 21 percent goes to the 1.3 million health-care workers to be vaccinated;

— 27 percent goes to the 1.7 million essential workers to be vaccinated; and

— 52 percent goes to the 3.2 million New Yorkers 65 and older.

Health-care workers are to be vaccinated at hospitals, essential workers are to be vaccinated at municipal health departments or through their unions, and people 65 and older are to get their shots at state-run sites or from pharmacies.

Changes urged on vaccine distribution

On Monday, two different groups wrote to Cuomo, urging change on vaccine distribution.

The Retired Public Employees Association, representing nearly 500,000 retirees and their beneficiaries, called for a more efficient and effective system for applying for COVID-19 vaccine appointments and recommended a one-stop online system.

The letter from Diana Hincliff, president of the association, says, “The vast majority of our members are over 65 and a large percentage are over 75. Many have underlying health conditions that put them at high risk for contracting the COVID-19 virus and, in fact, some have. It is imperative that they be able to be vaccinated as soon as possible. New York needs a new vaccine distribution system.”

Hinchcliff also writes, “We understand that many more vaccination sites will be opened. However, if applicants have to visit each site individually and if appointments are allotted on a first come, first served basis, people will have no better luck with these than with the state facilities.”

Also on Monday, four Capital Region lawmakers wrote to Cuomo, urging him to re-prioritize disbursement of the vaccine to health-care workers, essential and emergency management workers, and vulnerable populations like those living with developmental disabilities — all of them part of the state’s 1a tier.

The letter responds to a Jan. 23 executive order that outlines the percentages to go to health workers, essential workers, and people over 65 based on the size of those groups.

“This new executive order declares that ‘proportional’ is ‘fair,’ yet it is not fair to our front line health-care workers, emergency workers, and our most vulnerable New Yorkers to bear a proportional burden in this pandemic. We cannot call health care workers heroes one day and then deny them priority access to vaccination the next,” write Senator Neil Breslin and Assembly members Patricia Fahy, John McDonald, and Carrie Woerner — all Democrats.

The local lawmakers favor the original regional hub model in which people in tier 1a — including people with disabilities in group homes as well as high-risk health-care workers and funeral workers — were to be vaccinated first.

“Most importantly, the regional hubs are working with individuals and organizations closest to the people and they are best positioned to accomplish our mutual goal,” write the lawmakers. “They need the vaccine allocations to complete this mission, however, the executive order ensures that more than 75% of the very limited vaccine supply will go to lower priority individuals of 65 and older who may be far less vulnerable.”

The state changed course to follow federal guidance in adding people 65 and older after which Cuomo has frequently complained that over 7 million New Yorkers are now eligible for vaccination although the supply has been several-hundred-thousand doses a week.

Newest numbers

Another county resident, a man in his sixties, died of COVID-19, Mccoy announced in his release Monday morning. This brings the county’s COVID-19 death toll to 296.

As of Monday morning, Albany County has had 17,311 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 151 new cases since Sunday.

Of the new cases, 103 did not have a clear source of infection identified, 32 had close contact with someone infected with the disease, and 16 are health-care workers or residents of congregate settings.

The five-day average for new daily positives has decreased to 225.4 from 229.8. There are now 1,708 active cases in the county, down from 1,804 on Sunday.

The number of county residents under mandatory quarantine decreased to 2,700 from 2,768. So far, 51,461 residents have completed quarantine. Of those, 15,603 of them had tested positive and recovered. That is an increase of 241 recoveries since Sunday.