Eight more COVID deaths bring county’s toll to 508
— File photo from the Albany County Executive Office
Vaccines arrive on Dec. 21, 2020 at Shaker Place, Albany County’s nursing home.
ALBANY COUNTY — The county’s executive, Daniel McCoy, reported eight COVID-related deaths on Friday, five of them from earlier in the month, bringing the county’s toll to 508.
Over the last two years, nursing homes in the county — which are required to inform the state, but not the county, of deaths — have not always informed the county’s health department in a timely manner.
Of the newly reported nursing home deaths, one each occurred on Jan. 2, 8, 11, 22, and 27. McCoy noted that none of those deaths were at the county’s nursing home, Shaker Place.
The other three COVID-related deaths happened overnight, he said.
Among the eight deaths were a man in his fifties, a man in his sixties, two men in their seventies, a woman in her eighties, and three women in their nineties.
“We see that this has been a deadlier month than we had thought,” said McCoy in his Friday release. “These individuals now bring our COVID death total to 38 for January ….
“And while this is certainly tragic news, 38 is far fewer than the 77 COVID deaths we reported this far into January last year. I am hopeful that, as our infection rate continues to trend downward in Albany County, the Capital Region, and the rest of the state, we will see fewer hospitalizations and deaths moving forward.”
The number of new infections continues to decline from its Jan. 13 peak of 1,586 new cases reported in a single day. On Friday, McCoy reported 260 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the seven-day average of new daily positive cases down to 349.8.
Albany County’s most recent seven-day average of cases per 100,000 is now down to 93.2 and its infection rate is 10.7 percent.
Statewide, according to the governor’s office, the rate is 86.98 cases per 100,000 population. The region with the lowest rate is Long Island at 72.73, and the highest is Central New York at 125.58 cases per 100,000.
The infection rate statewide, as a seven-day average, is 7.91 percent and Omicron accounts for 95 percent of the new cases. New York City has the lowest infection rate at 5.95 percent and the North Country and Western New York are the highest — each with infection rates over 14 percent.
Albany County had eight new hospitalizations since Thursday, and there are now 101 county residents hospitalized with the coronavirus — a net decrease of six. Fifteen of those hospital patients are currently in intensive-care units, one fewer than on Thursday.
