ALBANY COUNTY — The county had just one new case of COVID-19 yesterday after a week of upticks.

Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday said, “You look across the regions of the state, we see good news all across the regions. No warning signs or no trouble spots.”

New York City, the last of the state’s 10 regions to reopen, entered its fourth and final phase of reopening on Monday.

The state’s hospitalizations are at the lowest level since March 18: at 716. Since yesterday, eight New Yorkers died of COVID-19.

“Again, we don’t want to lose any life and they are in our thoughts and prayers, but that is a great number relative to where we’ve been,” said Cuomo.

He spoke to the press at JFK Airport as he and staff members were leaving for a one-day trip to Savannah, Georgia — fulfilling a promise the governor made when New York was the epicenter of the pandemic.

Last Thursday, Cuomo announced that New York State has established two church testing sites in COVID-19 hotspots in Houston, Texas. On July 13, he announced the state was sending testing and contract-tracing teams to Atlanta, Georgia. On July 10, he said New York would send the COVID-19 medication Remdesivir to Florida as the state struggles with a resurgence of cases.

“When New York was at its worst point, to come into our emergency rooms, come to our hospitals to fight this dreaded disease, 30,000 people came to help us. I was floored. I was touched —  I'll tell you the truth, I was inspired ...,” said Cuomo on Monday.

“So, we're doing everything we can now to pay it back. And states and people all across the nation but not just governments: California gave us ventilators, Oregon gave us ventilators, New England Patriots owner was flying a plane to China from Massachusetts to get PPE. They did us a favor, put PPE on the plane from China for us,” said Cuomo of personal protective equipment like masks, gowns, and gloves.

Cuomo’s contingent in Georgia met with  Savannah Mayor Van R. Johnson, a Democrat, and a Savannah health-care team to discuss best practices to fight the pandemic, including how to set up testing and contact tracing operations. 

Albany County numbers

Meanwhile Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy reported on Monday that the county now has 2,098 confirmed cases of COVID-19, just one more than Sunday. There are now 590 people under quarantine, down from 626.

The five-day average for new daily positive cases has gone down significantly from 17.6 on Sunday to 9 on Monday. There are currently 67 active cases, down from 73 on Sunday.

So far, 6,488 county residents have completed quarantine, with 2,031 of them having tested positive and recovered.

Three county residents are hospitalized with one in an intensive-care unit. The county’s hospitalization rate remains at 0.14 percent.

The county’s death toll remains at 122.