ALBANY COUNTY — Statewide, hospitalizations for COVID-19 are down again, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Saturday. At the same time, Albany County is expecting an uptick in its hospitalizations.

“All the numbers are basically saying the same, that we are in fact on the down side of the mountain,” Andrew Cuomo said at his Saturday press briefing; he also reported 437 deaths on Saturday.

“More nursing-home patients are going to the hospital,” said Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy at his Saturday press briefing. The county’s COVID-19 death toll stands at 31.

The county’s nursing home has had 39 residents test positive for coronavirus disease 2019 and 15 employees, one of whom has recovered and returned to work. Three Shaker Place residents have died of the disease.

With a new wing on the nursing home, there are vacant floors, McCoy said, so residents are being spaced out across those floors.

In Albany County, tests are available only to people with symptoms — a fever, cough, or shortness of breath. 

“We can’t test you if you have no signs … We just can’t afford to do it right now,” said McCoy.

However, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Saturday that diagnostic testing is to be expanded to include all first responders, health-care workers, and essential employees.

“Why? Because these people have been carrying the load and they have been subjected to the public all during this crisis and because they’re public facing,” said Cuomo. “These are the people who you interact with.”

Cuomo also went over the way in which the federal government will work with the states in testing.

“The states take responsibility for the labs in their state in getting those labs functioning. We regulate those labs,” he said. “And the federal government would take the responsibility of making sure the national manufacturers had the tests, the reagents, the vials, the swabs, all the equipment that the national manufacturer needs to be able to send to our labs so our labs can actually function.”

New York, he said, has 300 laboratories.

Cuomo also announced that he would authorize all the independent pharmacists in the state — New York has 5,000 pharmacies — to be collection sites for testing.

“Since we now have more collection sites, more testing capacity, we can open up the eligibility for those tests,” Cuomo said.

Starting next week, “significant antibody testing” will be conducted in downstate New York, focusing on first responders and frontline transit workers, Cuomo said.  Antibody testing determines — with a finger prick — if someone has immunity to the disease. It’s possible to have COVID-19 and not have any symptoms.

County cases up by 80

Albany County now has 864 confirmed cases of COVID-19, up 80 from Friday, McCoy said; 746 county residents are under mandatory quarantine and 74 under precautionary quarantine.

Albany County’s numbers for confirmed cases are higher than elsewhere, McCoy said, because of the aggressive testing.

Since April 6, the state has run a drive-through diagnostic testing site for Capital Region residents with COVID-19 symptoms. Appointments must be made by calling the state’s health department at 1-888-364-3065.

Additionally, the county, working with the Whitney M. Young Jr. Health Center, has set up mobile walk-up diagnostic testing sites in high-risk neighborhoods. In addition to Albany and Watervliet, Cohoes is now being added as a testing site.

The schedule is posted on the county’s website. All testing is by appointment only. Residents who call 518-465-4771 will be screened over the phone before an appointment is made.

Finally, drive-through testing is being held in Colonie, at the Rite Aid at 1863 Central Ave., sponsored by Rite Aid pharmacies and the federal government. Appointments are required, set up online at www.riteaid.com.