ALBANY COUNTY — On Saturday morning, Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy announced three more residents have died of COVID-19, and more records have been broken — for hospitalizations and intensive-care patients.

Also on Saturday, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order providing additional support for two of the groups hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic — vulnerable homeowners and the restaurant industry.

The three county residents who succumbed to COVID-19 on Friday were all women — one in her fifties, the second in her seventies, and the third in her nineties. Their deaths bring the county’s toll to 191.

“Seeing more people in their fifties now … it’s getting scary,” said McCoy in making the announcement. “When you start seeing people younger and younger that are falling to this awful disease.”

He also said, “We continue to set records in hospitalizations.” Currently 113 county residents are hospitalized with COVID-19. Twenty-two of those patients are in intensive-care units, which McCoy said is “the highest we’ve seen to date.”

McCoy noted that metrics on hospital and ICU capacity are what the governor’s winter plan uses to define micro-cluster zones, which were formerly determined solely by infection rates.

He noted the lines of ambulances at hospitals in southern California, which has been hard hit by the disease.

Albany County Health Commissioner Elizabeth Whalen also spoke of the situation in southern California and said, “This is something we can avoid but it’s down to you.”

She again spoke of the sacrifice that she herself is making in not holding the usual family gathering for Christmas and urged others to do the same.

The question everyone should ask, she said, is: “Am I inviting someone in that doesn’t live in my family home and, if the answer to that is yes, you are taking a risk.”

On vaccines, Whalen said she was heartened to see the Pfizer vaccine is being administered locally to frontline workers and called it “the beginning of the end.”

She noted that the governor has allocated 10 regional hubs across the state to coordinate and distribute vaccines. “We are still learning what that means,” said Whalen.

Albany Medical Center is the hub for the eight-county Capital Region.

Over the years, in planning for vaccinations, Albany County has “developed a robust medical reserve corps including nurses and doctors that would be at the helm and ready to vaccinate,” said Whalen.

Whalen envisions coordinating those existing plans with the organization of the regional hub, and said she is pleased to be part of a task force convened by the regional hub.

Whalen concluded by speaking of the need for “an equitable plan for distribution across Albany County.” She also promised transparency and said she would share more as more is learned.

McCoy said he’d had a conversation recently with Albany County Legislator Wanda Willingham and the Black Caucus about trying to find people who don’t have doctors and have underlying health conditions.

Cuomo has repeatedly stressed the importance of seeing that Black, brown, and poor communities, which have suffered a disproportionate number of deaths fro, COVID-19, be fairly served with vaccinations.

Executive order

Cuomo’s new executive order allows local governments to continue to provide property tax exemptions for low-income senior citizens and people with disabilities who own property through 2021 by lifting an in-person renewal requirement that would put vulnerable New Yorkers at risk of infection from COVID.

Additionally, the sales-tax deadline for restaurants in orange zones that have been required to suspend indoor dining will be extended until March.

“We’re taking measures that will provide much needed tax relief for some of those hardest hit by this pandemic — New Yorkers over 65 and our restaurant industry,” Cuomo said in a statement as he announced the new executive order. “With the finish line in sight, we will continue to support New Yorkers wherever possible and fight to get the federal government to deliver real relief for those who are struggling.”

Also on Saturday, Cuomo sent a letter to President Donald Trump, calling on him to use his influence and force Congress to ensure the next COVID-19 stimulus package includes financial relief for American families, states and localities. He also asked Trump to forge a compromise on corporate liability limitations.

“Senator McConnell is irrelevant. You control the Republican Party, as was just demonstrated by the Texas lawsuit against democracy. You will decide and be held accountable for the consequences of this urgently-needed COVID legislation,” Cuomo wrote.

Newest numbers

As of Saturday morning, Albany County has had 8,912 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 178 new cases since Friday, McCoy announced.

For the first time, the county’s five-day average of new cases is over 200, at 200.6.

McCoy surmised that the new number is down slightly because some testing sites were closed because of the snowstorm on Wednesday and Thursday.

Of the 178 new cases, 22 had close contact with someone infected with the disease, 151 did not have a clear source of infection identified at this time, and five are health-care workers or residents of congregate settings.

There are now 1,619 active cases in the county, down from 1,637 on Friday. The number of county residents under mandatory quarantine decreased to 3,063 from 3,237. So far, 30,824 residents have completed quarantine. Of those, 7,293 of them had tested positive and recovered.

Statewide, the governor’s office reported in a press release, the infection rate, based on Friday’s test results, was 5.36 percent. The Capital Region, of which Albany County is a part, had a rate of 6.78 percent.

Currently, the Capital Region has 334 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, which is 0.03 percent of the population and leaves 24 percent of the region’s hospital beds available. Statewide, 0.03 percent of New Yorkers are hospitalized with the disease and 28 percent of hospital beds are available.

The Capital Region has 228 ICU beds of which 181 are occupied, leaving 32 percent available. Statewide,  33 percent of ICU beds are available.