ALBANY COUNTY — As hospitalizations from COVID-19 continue to surge across the state, including in Albany County, the state’s acting health commissioner, Mary Bassett, on Monday stressed the increase in pediatric admissions.

Data on patients’ ages was not available for Albany County, but the county’s executive, Daniel McCoy, said in his daily COVID release on Monday morning, “The double-digit increase in overnight hospitalizations gives me reason to pause.” Sixty county residents are currently hospitalized with the virus, six of them in intensive-care units.

Concentrated in the New York City area, Bassett said, there was a four-fold increase in pediatric admissions. Among the hospitalized children aged 5 to 11, none had been vaccinated, she said.

About 27 percent of New York State children in that age group have received at least one dose of vaccine.

Governor Kathy Hochul encouraged parents to use the school break this week to vaccinate their children.

Bassett reported that, starting the week of Dec. 5 to 11, there were 70 pediatric admissions, which has gone up statewide two-and-a-half fold.

“Many people continue to think that children don’t become infected with COVID. This is not true,” said Bassett. “Children become infected and some will be hospitalized. The immunization coverage in this group, the vaccination coverage, remains too low.”

She said her department released the data on pediatric hospitalizations to alert both pediatricians and parents to the dangers.

Shorter isolation

Bassett also went over the new state guidance on fully vaccinated people returning to work after five days, rather than 10 days, of isolation once infected with COVID-19. This applies to people whose symptoms are minor or resolving and who have not had a fever for 72 hours. They must wear a quality, well-fitting mask when they return to work, Bassett said.

Hochul implemented the measure last Friday for the critical workforce. On Monday evening, she issued a statement thanking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for now updating its guidance to shorten the recommended time for isolation from 10 to 5 days for everyone who is asymptomatic, as long as they wear a well-fitting mask.

“This is a critical step to support our small businesses, critical industries, and essential services as we get through this new variant,” said Hochul.

Nursing homes

Finally, Bassett reported on Monday that, of the 608 nursing homes across the state, about a third have at least one resident who has COVID. Nearly 90 percent of nursing home residents are fully vaccinated, Bassett said, but not as many are boosted.

“And this seems to be particularly important in protecting against adverse outcomes of Omicron infection. When we do the math, about two thirds of nursing home residents have been fully vaccinated and boosted. W’'re working hard to get that number up,” Bassett said, noting her department is using a county-by-county approach.

“The facts are clear,” said Bassett. “We know that three quarters of the lives we’ve lost in this pandemic have been among people who are over 65. So being fully vaccinated and boosted is critical in this very vulnerable population of nursing home residents.”

Hochul said, when it comes to treating nursing home residents, “There are barriers, where someone has dementia and cannot knowingly consent to getting a vaccination or a booster shot, or family members declined the opportunity to get approvals for them.”

Test kits

Keeping kids in school is an “all hands on deck” operation, said Emergency Services Commissioner Jackie Bray. Of the current distribution of COVID test kits, she said, half of the six million kits allocated to the state will go out this week, with 2 million going directly to New York City.

The plan, after classes resume on Jan. 3, is to have students who are exposed to schoolmates who have tested positive to bring home rapid tests. If the students test negative at home and have no symptoms, rather than quarantining, they can return to school.

“There's 731 end points, those are our districts,” said Bray. “We’ll be supplying them through 60 different hubs throughout the state. Those will include the BOCES, some direct to school districts and some county hubs. Planes with these kits begin arriving tomorrow. They will be landing in the state every day this week.”

The districts that have the highest level of transmission will be prioritized to get the test kits, said Bray.

“Pharmacies and urgent cares across the state continue to offer testing, including walk-in testing,” said Bray. “Last week, we delivered over a million over the counter tests to county, local health departments outside of New York City.”

McCoy said on Dec. 23 that Albany County was given 138,000 Kn-95 masks and 10,000 test kits. The county’s sheriff said the supplies would be distributed to the county’s municipalities based on population.

On Monday, Guilderland Supervisor Peter Barber announced in an email that the masks and kits the town received would be handed out at the Emergency Medical Services Station One, starting at 1 p.m. on Monday. By 3:20 p.m., all of the COVID tests were gone. A limited amount of masks were still available till 4 p.m. on Monday.

An Incident Management Assistance Team from the Federal Emergency Management Agency arrived in Albany on Monday, said Bray.

“They are helping us secure and make good on the asks that we’ve made for clinical staffing, for additional ambulances, for additional mobile testing,” she said. “Six mobile testing teams arrived last week in New York City, we expect more to be coming from the federal government.

The federal government sent 30 ambulances about 10 days ago to relieve transport and transfer pressure in central New York, she said; ten of those teams were redeployed to New York City on Friday where they remain.

“In addition to those resource asks, the governor has been very clear that it’s important that New York State receive the monoclonal antibody treatment that continues, the one that continues to work against Omicron and the oral treatment that Pfizer is preparing and is making available,” Bray concluded.