ALBANY COUNTY — Wear a mask. Keep your distance.

That’s the message from county officials and also from the governor today.

Albany County is dealing with a growing cluster of COVID-19 cases from a Fourth of July gathering where party-goers didn’t wear masks and didn’t keep their distance.

Andrew Cuomo launched a national “Mask Up America” campaign on Thursday, featuring spots with actors like Robert De Niro, Rosie Perez, and Jamie Foxx.

“New Yorkers suffered gravely when this pandemic hit our state and, as we see other states battle the surge of COVID-19,” said Cuomo in making the announcement, “we want to be sure all Americans know what we know here — that it is essential to wear a mask in order to protect one another.”

The governor also announced that all restaurants and bars in New York State will be subject to new requirements that they must only serve alcohol to people who are ordering and eating food and that all service at bar tops must only be for seated patrons who are socially distanced by six feet or separated by physical barriers.

Cuomo again called on local government officials to enforce compliance. “If we do not enforce compliance, the virus will spread,” he said.

Cuomo went on, “I understand enforcement is not politically popular. I’ll tell you what’s less politically popular: If we have to close down a region because compliance wasn’t done.”

In New York City a “three strikes and you’re closed” policy is being enacted, meaning a business that  has three violations will be shut down, Cuomo said. “It’s wrong. It’s dangerous. It’s selfish. It’s unacceptable,” said Cuomo of the failure to comply.

“We’re still going in the wrong direction,” said Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy at his Thursday morning press briefing.

He had let up on his once-daily briefings as the Capital Region entered the fourth and final phase of reopening and the number of new cases of COVID-19 was steadily declining.

But on Wednesday, McCoy announced 44 new cases overnight, six from a Fourth of July party on Hudson Avenue in Albany where party-goers didn’t wear masks or keep six feet apart from each other.

More than 200 college-age people attended the party in several backyards. They are being asked to contact the county’s health department.

In Albany County, the 20-to-29 age group has more COVID-19 cases than any other age decade. Young adults often have no signs of the disease or only minor symptoms. “How many have it, don’t care they have it, and aren’t getting tested?” asked McCoy.

Referring to the county’s dashboard that tracks COVID-19 cases by age group among other criteria, McCoy said, “the numbers would probably be 10 times higher if these kids would get tested.”

Similarly, Albany County Health Commissioner Elizabeth Whalen urged anyone who attended the Fourth of July party on Hudson to call her department at 518-447-4640. “We’ll be able to assist you to get a quick test,” she said.

Whalen went on, “It’s very important for control of COVID for us to identify and appropriately isolate individuals that test positive as quickly as possible.”

This is especially true for the younger age group, Whalen said, since many are asymptomatic. “Knowing that you’re positive really helps empower you to make better decisions,” she said.

Every day, her department does contact tracing for people who may be quite ill, Whalen said. “We ask: Who are your contacts? Who were you in touch with? I ask all of those in the younger age group to think of this as a personal responsibility because you don’t want someone who’s quite ill to say that you were the contact. Please think of others,” she urged.

New cases of COVID-19 in Albany County had peaked in mid-April..

“It’s easy,” said Whalen, “once we start seeing a rise in cases to get what we call exponential growth so we can start to see two cases, become seven cases, become 12 cases, etcetera, etcetera in a very short time.”

She went on, “First we see a spike in cases and then we start to see a spike in hospitalizations and then we see a spike in deaths. We don’t want to see that happen again.”

The last COVID-19 death of a county resident was on June 24; the county’s death toll stands at 121.

“What you do today …,” said Whalen, “will influence what happens two weeks from now.” She urged wearing a mask, frequent handwashing, and avoiding social gatherings.

The county now has 2,066 confirmed cases of COVID-19, an increase of 13 since yesterday, with 580 residents under quarantine, up from 544.

The five-day average for new daily positive cases has now increased to 16.8 from 16 yesterday. There are currently 84 active cases, up from 77 yesterday.

So far, 6,256 Albany County residents have completed quarantine, with 1,982 of them having tested positive and recovered.

Two county residents are hospitalized and the county’s hospitalization rate remains at 0.09 percent.

McCoy urged residents who don’t want to wear a mask not to go into stores. “Think of the people just trying to make a living, just trying to put food on the table or pay their bills after not working for a couple of months,” he said.

“Think about that person that has to go in there and has no choice,” he said of store and restaurant workers. “They don’t want to argue with you whether to wear a mask or do the right thing or social distancing.”

He concluded, “You want to have a social gathering? Six feet apart and wear your mask.”

Also on Thursday, Cuomo said that travel-form compliance went up to 92 percent after the state announced fines for failure to complete the form. The governor had announced on Monday that travelers from 22 now-designated states with high rates of COVID-19 must provide local authorities with contact information upon entering New York to help enforce a 14-day self-quarantine.

Enforcement teams are being stationed at airports, including Albany’s, across the state. Violators face  fines of up to $2,000 if they don’t fill out the forms.

While the governor is being cautious about arrivals from COVID-19 hotspots, he is also offering help to those places. 

On Monday, Cuomo announced that New York State was deploying testing and contact-tracing teams to Atlanta as the city has spikes in COVID-19 cases. 

Today, he announced that teams of nurses and doctors had been sent to Houston, Texas where they have set up COVID-19 testing sites in low-income neighborhoods.

“Our numbers have surged …,” said Houston’s mayor, Sylvester turner, a Democrat and an African American. He went on at Thursday’s press briefing, “This virus is having a disproportionate impact on communities of color, low-income communities, and where even more testing is needed. And people — a lot of people — who are wanting testing, needing testing and they’re having to wait a long time.”

Cuomo said that the second surge of COVID-19 is “man-made-all self-created.”

“It’s our pleasure to help Houston, to help Atlanta, to help states across the nation deal with it. It’s the right thing to do as Americans,” Cuomo said. “It’s also in our self interest because we are all in this together.

“And if people ... infected in Arizona or Houston or Atlanta got on a plane and come to New York, now it’s New York’s problem. … Our numbers are good but what we are looking at — what we’re dealing with — is the potential of a second wave from these other states.”