ALBANY COUNTY — Following a national trend, Albany County, in its 29th week of battling COVID-19, noted an uptick in cases for youth between the ages of 10 and 19.

On Tuesday, the American Academy of Pediatrics and Children’s Health Association published a study online that showed a rapid rise in children’s COVID-19 cases over the last five months.

Researchers analyzed the trends by using data from public health department websites.

The study, “National Trends of Cases of COVID-19 in Children Based on U.S. State Health Department Data,” found that, in April, just 2.2 percent of reported COVID-19 cases nationwide were of children; by September, that had risen to 10 percent.

“These rising numbers concern us greatly, as the children’s cases reflect the increasing virus spread in our communities,” said Sally Goza, M.D., the association’s president, in a statement, releasing the report. “While children generally don’t get as sick with the coronavirus as adults, they are not immune and there is much to learn about how easily they can transmit it to others.”

Also on Tuesday, Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy noted a local spike in cases for county residents between the age of 10 and 19, and cited a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“In light of the recent CDC study that found teenagers may be far more susceptible to the coronavirus than younger children, we looked at some of our own data and found that this age group saw a relatively large spike recently,” McCoy said in a statement, announcing the county’s new numbers. “In the last week, the number of positive cases among 10- to 19-year-olds shot up by 12.5 percent, compared to the 5.1-percent increase among the 20-to-29 year-old age group.”

The 20-to-29 age group had long been the age decade in Albany County that most frequently reported positive test results.

“There could be a number of explanations for this,” McCoy’s statement went on, “but with many college campuses still operating and many children going back to school for in-person lessons, we need to continue to monitor this troubling trend and ensure parents are able to get their children tested.”

As of Wednesday evening, the county’s COVID-19 Dashboard showed a total of 308 cases in the 10-to-19 age group, and 720 cases in the 20-to-29 age group.

Last Thursday, Sept. 24, Governor Andrew Cuomo highlighted a state website that tracks testing at public schools throughout New York.

“Schools are congregate situations by definition. The virus travels in congregate settings, by definition,” said Cuomo at Thursday’s press briefing. “We are seeing problems in colleges all across this nation and all across this state.”

Cuomo said public school districts will be monitored with testing data. He described the state’s strategy this way: “We have the testing. Monitor the testing in schools very carefully. If you see a problem, react quickly. That’s our strategy.”

The state’s Department of Health is hosting the School COVID Report Card website. Gareth Rhodes  noted at Cuomo’s Thursday press conference that labs across New York are required by law to report the names, ages, and addresses of people tested for COVID-19. He said of the 93,000 test results reported last Wednesday, about 5,000 were of school-aged people, aged 5 to 17.

“You now will have that data from the labs and you will have that data from the school surveys,” said Rhodes. “It will not always match up perfectly, because sometimes when the school district reports and when the lab reports there might be a slight lag, but the goal here really is to give parents and New Yorkers full transparency.”

Locally this week, Guilderland had a staff member test positive for COVID-19, announced Monday, and then the school announced a second case on Wednesday. Altamont Elementary School had two students test positive last week, and Voorheesville Middle School had one.

UAlbany cases continue

Throughout the week, Albany County reported COVID-19 cases daily related to the University at Albany, which has two campuses in the county.

Last Thursday, eight of 14 new cases were from UAlbany; Friday, 11 of 18; Saturday, 11 of 27; Sunday, 8 of 19; Monday, 5 of 9; Tuesday, 6 of 11; and Wednesday, 3 of 11 — so a total of 52 of the county’s 109 new cases this week came from UAlbany.

On Friday, the State University of New York Chancellor Jim Malatras announced that students who flout COVID-19 safety protocols face immediate academic and housing suspension.

“While a vast majority of our students are complying with the rules, we cannot let a few people ruin it for everyone,” Malatras said in a statement.

 Each of the state’s 64 colleges and universities must put the new policy in place by Thursday, Oct. 1. 

Infractions include failing to isolate or quarantine, hosting or attending on- or off-campus gatherings, and not wearing a mask or observing social distancing.

The state requires campuses that have more than 100 cases in a two-week period to move to remote teaching for two weeks.

The state is counting these cases in discrete two-week periods, rather than in rolling two-week periods, which Albany County Health Commissioner Elizabeth Whalen said would make more sense from both an epidemiologic and logic point of view.

Whalen said that UAlbany continues to have a “low number of cases on campus compared to overall cases.” The county’s health department is tallying the cases of students, staff, or faculty who work or live or attend classes on campus.

For the latest two-week period, beginning Sept. 26, the SUNY COVID-19 Tracker shows UAlbany has 15 estimated cases, as of Wednesday evening; the total since tracking began, on Aug. 28, is estimated at 145.

The tracker also shows that of the 230 rooms UAlbany has set aside for quarantine, 45 are in use. That is down from numbers in the 60s a week ago.

Clusters

Throughout the week, the governor has focused on COVID-19 clusters.

Cuomo had said on Monday that rapid-testing machines would be deployed in areas with high rates of positive tests for COVID-19. Out of the 1,740 ZIP codes in New York State, 20 have positivity rates of 5 percent or higher, primarily in Rockland and Orange counties as well as in Brooklyn.

The statewide goal is to have a rate at or below 1 percent. The most recent results for the Capital Region, from tests results reported Tuesday, is 0.5 percent.

“If you look at those clusters and you look at those ZIP codes, you will see there’s an overlap with large Orthodox Jewish communities. That is a fact,” Cuomo said at a press briefing in New York City on Tuesday.

He went on, “I will be meeting with them to talk about it. This is a public health concern for their community. It’s also a public health concern for surrounding communities. I’ve said from day one, these public health rules apply to every religion, atheists — it just applies to every citizen of the State of New York, period.”

Cuomo also said on Tuesday, in an interview with Kristen Shaughnessy of NY1 News, that pictures have been circulating showing a lack of compliance at religious ceremonies; houses of worship are, by law, to be used only at half capacity.

“The law is there to protect you and the local officials are supposed to be enforcing it and we need the help of the community,” Cuomo told Shaughnessy. “And look, we do this because we love the Orthodox Jewish community and, if you have a high infection rate, people are going to get sick and people are going to die, and it’s out of love and that’s why we do the compliance work. It’s out of love. But I need the local governments to help.”

On Wednesday — when the ZIP code with the highest positivity rate was in Rockland County at 17 percent — Cuomo reported, at a press conference in Albany, that he had met with leaders of the Orthodox community that morning.

“I explained the situation frankly and candidly and we had a good exchange,” he said. “I think it’s fair to say that the leaders of the community understand and they’re going to take action and we're going to come up with an action plan.”

The state’s health commissioner, Cuomo said, would work on Wednesday afternoon with community leaders to come up with an action plan.

Also throughout the week, Cuomo stressed that mask-wearing is a law and that local governments need to enforce it. “We’re past public education …,” Cuomo said on Wednesday. “Enforce the law.”

“I understand the sensitivities of this political environment and no one wants to enforce a law because then you make the other person unhappy and nobody wants anyone unhappy. You know what makes people really unhappy?” Cumo asked, answering himself, “Dying makes people really unhappy ... The infection rate going up and then having to close businesses makes people really unhappy. So, local governments, enforce the law. If you are unwilling to enforce the law, I will enforce the law.”

Cuomo likened the situation to bars and restaurants that hadn’t been complying with coronavirus restrictions. He said the enforcement task force he put together, which has the power to suspend liquor licenses, has been successful.

“I have about 5,000 State Troopers,” Cuomo said on Wednesday and he would need local governments to assign a number of their police to a State Police task force. “I will ticket people who don’t wear masks because that will save lives  at this point,” Como said.

“We know how to keep the infection rate down; we’re just not doing it in these clusters and that’s a failure of the local government,” Cuomo said, calling it “a matter of life and death.”

Taking on the feds

Throughout the week, Cuomo challenged the competence of the Trump administration in controlling the coronavirus.

Last Thursday, as COVID-19 cases continued to spike in the midwest, Cuomo joined with Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Esther Whitmer — both Democrats — to call on Congress to conduct an oversight investigation into the Republican Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“How can you not tell the American people what you knew and when you knew it?” Cuomo asked in a free-ranging press conference in New York City on Thursday, Sept. 24.

He also announced that New York State will form an independent Clinical Advisory Task Force of leading scientists, doctors, and health experts to review every COVID-19 vaccine authorized by the federal government, and will advise New York State on the vaccine’s  safety and effectiveness in fighting the virus.

He named the members of that task force on Tuesday.

Cuomo also established a Vaccine Distribution and Implementation Task Force to design a program to distribute a vaccine.

“The president is once again in a dispute with the FDA,” said Cuomo of the Food and Drug Administration. “FDA says they want to make the approval more rigorous, more transparent. President says they’re trying to politicize it. Why would the FDA be politicizing the approval?”

Cuomo also said that 54 percent of New Yorkers say they wouldn’t take a vaccine.

“The first question is, is the vaccine safe? Frankly, I’m not going to trust the federal government’s opinion and I wouldn’t recommend [a vaccine] to New Yorkers based on the federal government’s opinion,” said Cuomo. “Second question is, if it is a safe vaccine, how do you implement it? Implementation is a massive undertaking.”

Cuomo went on, “The state’s going to take the lead in all of this because the federal government has shown they have been incompetent when it comes to COVID. Why don’t the American people trust the Trump administration on COVID? Because they have been proven to be incompetent. This is not a subjective political answer. It’s proven. The second answer is because they lie. Our response, this nation’s response, is the worst on the globe.”

Whitmer and Cuomo’s joint statement called for “listening to the science and facts” rather than “playing politics.”

“Last week’s revelation that the White House blocked a Department of Health and Human Services plan to utilize the U.S. Postal Service to ship five life-saving masks to every household in the country, free of charge, in April was heartbreaking,” said the governors’ statement.

It went on, “Even more dangerous, the nation learned last week that political appointees at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — over the strong objection of CDC scientists — published the indefensible guidance that said people without symptoms did not need to get tested for COVID.”

Cuomo also continued to call for federal funds for state and local governments.

On Tuesday, Cuomo said at his press briefing, “I’m not accepting the premise that New York State or New York City should pay. We didn’t do anything wrong. The federal government should pay. The federal government was wrong,” said Cuomo. “It’s the federal government that allowed us to be ambushed by COVID.”

He repeated his familiar assertion that, for three months, plane loads of people were flying into New York City from Europe, where the virus had migrated, while the federal government was still focused on China.

Cuomo asserted that, if Joe Biden beats President Donald Trump in the presidential race and if Democrats win the Senate in the Nov. 3 election, New York’s Senator Chuck Schumer would become the Senate leader and “make sure New York is covered in the state and local package.”

Later on Tuesday, Cuomo, as the new chairman of the National Governors Association, put out a statement with Vice Chairman Asa Hutchinson, the Republican governor of Arkansas, calling on Congress to prioritize local and state aid.

“Every major economist, regardless of party or ideological bent, came to the same conclusion after the 2007-09 financial crisis: The lack of support for state and local governments slowed the nation's economic growth for more than a decade …,” their statement said. “We appreciate the House of Representatives for putting forth a new proposed relief package last night ... This is a national problem, and it demands a bipartisan and national solution.”

Nursing homes seek federal funds

With nearly all of the initial Healthcare Provider Relief Fund from CARES [Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security] Act spent and COVID-19 cases rising in 22 states, the United States will be unprepared heading into cold and flu season, according to the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living, which represents more than 14,000 nursing homes and assisted-living centers across the country that provide care to approximately 5 million people each year.

In Albany County, the majority of the county’s 134 COVID-19 deaths have been of nursing-home residents.

The association, in a release on Monday, warned Congress that, if another federal funding package isn’t passed, health-care providers “could find themselves less than completely prepared heading into the cold and flu season, as well as underfunded to handle another major spike in COVID cases.”

With 70 percent of the $175 billion Provider Relief Fund provided in April by the CARES Act already distributed and remaining funds likely to be allocated by early October, health care providers, including long-term care facilities, will need additional funds to continue its response to the COVID pandemic heading into the cold and flu season, which provides new challenges, the association said.

“Coronavirus cases in the U.S. are beginning to rebound following weeks of reported declines and warnings from top U.S. health officials that the country could be vulnerable to fresh outbreaks coinciding with the forthcoming flu season,” the release quoted Michael T. Osterholm, a University of Minnesota epidemiologist, as saying.

President of the association, Mark Parkinson, called on Congress to provide an additional $100 billion for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Provider Relief Fund, which is accessible for all health care providers impacted by COVID-19.

New antibody test

A COVID-19 antibody test that provides results in 30 minutes was announced on Monday by SUNY Polytechnic Institute in partnership with Ciencia Inc. and the New York State Department of Health’s Wadsworth Center.

The test, based on research led by SUNY Poly Empire Innovation Professor of Nanobioscience Nate Cady, reveals who has been infected previously as compared to those who have not been infected by COVID-19.

The test uses dried blood spots, requiring only a small droplet of blood from a standard finger prick. Because dried blood spots remain stable, they can be transported by mail without any refrigeration to a testing facility.

Such a system for commercial use could be developed within a year, according to a release from SUNY Poly.

$18M from feds

Cuomo announced on Wednesday that New York State was awarded an $18 million federal grant to fund educational opportunities that train New Yorkers for in-demand jobs, support entrepreneurs, and help small businesses recover from the coronavirus pandemic. New York was one of just eight states to receive the funding, made available through the CARES Act.

New York’s program will have four elements:

— Education for hard-hit New York City to train residents with digital skills;

— Thirty community colleges in the SUNY system will train students in high-growth industries like technology, health care, and advanced manufacturing;

— Intensive workshops will be held to train entrepreneurs and small business owners on how to run their own businesses; and

— The state’s labor department will work with New York’s 10 Regional Economic Development Councils to identify programs that train job seekers to meet local current or future needs.

Newest numbers

The Albany County Executive’s Office announced on Wednesday that the county now has 2,969 confirmed cases of COVID-19, an increase of 11 since Tuesday.

Among the new positive cases, 10 had close contact with someone infected with the disease, and one is a healthcare worker or resident of a congregate setting. Separately, three of the 11 new cases are associated with UAlbany.

Currently, 943 county residents are under quarantine, up from 889 on Tuesday. The five-day average for new daily positives has decreased to 15.4 from 16.8. There are now 91 active cases in Albany County, down from 98.

So far, 12,365 county residents have completed quarantine. Of those who completed quarantine, 2,878 of them had tested positive and recovered. 

Five county residents are now hospitalized with COVID-19, one more than on Tuesday. The county’s hospitalization rate increased from 0.13 percent on Tuesday to 0.16 percent on Wednesday.

Albany County’s COVID-19 death toll remains at 134.