ALBANY COUNTY — Monday afternoon, Albany Medical Center announced that one teacher and seven children in the center’s Albany Med Kids daycare have tested positive for COVID-19.

“The majority of these cases were asymptomatic and, at this time, they have not required hospitalization,” said a release from Albany Med.

Sixty-two children were tested and the children have been asked not to return to the program until after the recommended 14-day incubation period from the last date of possible exposure. The program was suspended on Monday and will remain closed through Friday, Aug. 7.

The announcement came on the heels of Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy’s daily COVID press briefing, in which it looked like, after a two-week uptick in new COVID-19 cases, the increase might be leveling off.

As of Monday morning, there were 2,229 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Albany County, an increase of seven since Sunday.

One is a health-care worker, one is an out-of-state traveler, and one had close contact with a COVID-19 patient. The four others had no clear source of infection at this point. “They’re still mapping and tracing,” said McCoy of county health department workers.

The number of Albany County residents under quarantine has increased from 892 on Sunday to 900 on Monday. “A couple of weeks ago, we were getting well under 150,” said McCoy.

The five-day average for new daily positive cases is now down to 18 from 19.4 on Sunday.

There are currently 87 active cases, down from 96 yesterday. So far, 6,949 county residents have completed quarantine, while 2,142 of them have tested positive and recovered, an increase of 16.

Four Albany County residents are hospitalized with one in an intensive-care unit. The county’s hospitalization rate has decreased to 0.17 percent from 0.18 percent on Sunday.

The county’s death toll from coronavirus disease 2019 remains at 124.

Of the 15,270 test results reported to New York State on Sunday, 608, or 1.06 percent, were positive. For the first time in several days, the Capital Region did not top the list for the highest percentage of positive results.

Rather, at 0.5 percent, the Capital Region was tied with the Southern Tier for third lowest of the state’s 10 regions. The North Country, at 0.2 percent, remains the lowest.

Syndrome affecting children

Governor Andrew Cuomo, in a conference call with the press on Friday, updated New Yorkers on the multisystem inflammatory syndrome that has affected 240 children in the state and is similar to Kawasaki disease. On June 29, the state’s health department published a study of children with the syndrome in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The study says the syndrome is associated with coronavirus disease 2019 and that, as of May 10, a total of 191 potential cases were reported to the health department.

Of those patients, 40 percent were Black and 36 percent were Hispanic. Thirty-one percent were younger than 5 years old, 42 percent were 6 to 12 years old, and 26 percent were 13 to 20 years old.

All had fever or chills; 97 percent had tachycardia, a fast heartbeat; 80 percent had gastrointestinal symptoms; 60 percent had a rash; 56 percent had conjunctival injection, or pink eye caused by extra blood in vessels in the outermost white of the eye; and 27 percent had mucosal changes.

Eighty percent were admitted to an intensive care unit, and two died. The median length of hospital stay was six days.

“The number of cases in New York has gone up slightly; we’re at about 240 cases now, said Cuomo on Monday. “That was about 15 or so more in the past month. But, New York is not a good gauge for this because the number of cases is coming down across the board, right?

“We are seeing the numbers increase in other states where the cases are increasing, and what we’re seeing is the more you look for it, the more you find it. If you're not aware of it, you don't see it.”

Cuomo said he was proud of the study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. “So, we’re getting the word out to the other health departments that they should look for this,” he said.

“And, as they’re looking for it, they’re finding more across the country,” Cuomo said, concluding, “But we have not seen it increasing significantly in New York, but then again we haven’t seen the cases [of COVID-19] increasing significantly in New York.”