The governor on Monday directed schools and nonessential businesses to stay closed for another two weeks, through April 29, and doubled the maximum fine for violating the state’s social-distancing protocol from $500 to $1,000.

“This virus is an enemy that the entire country underestimated from day one and we have paid the price dearly ...,” Andrew Cuomo said at Monday’s press briefing. “People are dying and our health-care workers are exposing themselves to tremendous risk every day. If we can’t convince you to show discipline for yourself in terms of social distancing, show discipline for other people.”

Cuomo confirmed 8,658 new cases of coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 130,689, most of them in New York City.

At the same time, Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy said the county now has 300 confirmed  cases of COVID-19 with 340 people under mandatory quarantine and 57 people under precautionary quarantine.

Forty-one people are now hospitalized with the disease, with 15 in intensive-care units, and the county’s hospitalization rate stands at just over 13.6 percent.

McCoy said he was relieved on Monday morning not to have to report any new deaths; Albany County’s death toll from COVID-19 remains at eight.

The state’s new drive-through testing site at the uptown University at Albany County opened Monday morning. The site, staffed by Albany Medical Center and St. Peter’s Health Care Partners, will perform tests on people throughout the Capital Region for the first few days.

The facility, located in white tents accessed through Washington Avenue Extension, will perform about 400 tests daily at first but will soon handle up to 1,000 people a day, McCoy said. He stressed that people have to call to make an appointment at 888-364-3065; no one will be admitted without calling first and getting an identification number.

Test results take several days. “In another week we could be close to 1,000,” McCoy said of confirmed cases, “or plateau. We don’t know.”

He also said, “You are kind of powerless without knowing.”

McCoy and Albany County’s health commissioner, Elizabeth Whalen, had called for community testing since it shut down two weeks ago due to limited testing kits from the federal government. Private companies have since started producing the test kits.

“Having the ability for community testing is a real great shift for us,” said Whalen on Monday morning. “This data … will be really key for us to see where we are.”

The county’s health department has been looking at hospitalization rates, mortality rates, and the percentage of positive tests from all those tested in the community. That last number had been at 7 or 8 percent, said Whalen, contrasting it to the 40 to 60 percent in “communities reaching surge capacity.”

“As more people are tested, the data becomes more meaningful,” Whalen said, noting that the state’s health department gives some county-specific information on its website: data.ny.gov.

Whalen reiterated, as she often has at the press briefings, the importance of residents staying home, keeping at least six feet from others, washing their hands, and covering their coughs.

 She said that following these protocols is even more important in the next two weeks.

“For every person infected, two people may be infected,” she said.

The hope is that, with community testing underway again, people who have COVID-19 — some of them without otherwise knowing it — will be less likely to expose others to the disease.

Whalen concluded, “We are hopeful we will not be as hard hit as some of the downstate counties but we don’t know that yet.”