ALBANY COUNTY — As more people rely on at-home tests to detect COVID-19, some health experts are questioning the usefulness of daily reports on cases.

The daily reports have been a cornerstone of public-health measures in Albany County with the health department tracking each positive result, and the resulting isolation period as well the quarantine periods for people exposed to the virus.

The governor’s office also puts out a daily release on the new COVID-19 cases, listed for each county, while some states are moving to weekly reports.

In his daily COVID report on Thursday, Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy said, “As New York State and Albany County work together to continue distributing at-home test kits to schools and the general public, we’re asking everyone who tests positive to submit their results on the county website through the newly added feature. This will allow us to better understand our infection rate and the level of community spread, because right now our daily case numbers likely are artificially low.”

The county has a form on its website — at this link: https://forms.albanycounty.com/Forms/dcu8G — for residents to fill out if they have gotten positive results on a take-home test taken after Dec. 20.

McCoy’s request comes in the midst of a record-breaking surge of new cases, presumably fueled by the highly contagious Omicron variant. New York State’s positivity rate is the highest in the nation.

The Omicron variant comprised 78 percent of uploaded sequences from New York State between Dec. 16 and 29, according to Thursday’s release from the governor’s office, which is based on data from the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data.

On Thursday, for the second day in a row, McCoy reported over 400 new infections: 410, which he said is likely “artificially low.”

“Unfortunately, these numbers are likely to grow larger ahead and after New Year’s,” said McCoy in the release. “I’m strongly urging everyone to practice caution when it comes to how they’re celebrating this year, and consider only gathering in small groups of vaccinated individuals who have gotten tested recently.” 

Test-to-stay

At the same time, the state is ramping up its distribution of free at-home tests.

Governor Kathy Hochul’s plan, which she announced over a week ago and reiterated on Wednesday at a press conference in Plattsburgh, is to supply schools with take-home tests.

When students return to school, after winter break, on Jan. 3, if someone in a class tests positive for COVID-19, classmates will be sent home with rapid antigen tests. If they test negative and don’t have symptoms, they can return to school rather than quarantining at home as previously required.

“As you may have heard in the media, Governor Hochul has indicated COVID-19 tests will be sent to all school districts for distribution following the winter break,” Guilderland Superintendent Marie Wiles wrote in an email to district families on Wednesday.

With wording similar to that used by other districts in the Capital Region Board of Cooperative Educational Services, like Berne-Knox-Westerlo, Wiles went on, “At this point, the Guilderland Central School District has not received these tests. Additionally, health and safety guidance from both the state and our local county health department continues to evolve.”

At Wednesday’s press conference, Hochul said, “We ordered 37 million tests to be available. They’re not all here yet, but every time a plane flies over, I’m saying, ‘Is that the one that’s got my supplies on it” because we’re literally getting 500,000 here, another million here, and we’re getting them out. So, they’ll be there when you need them to make sure your schools have everything they need.”

Surge ongoing

Hochul also noted the uptick in cases statewide and said, “So we’re basically preparing for a January surge. We know it’s coming and we're naive to think it won’t.”

On Thursday, the governor’s office reported that statewide infection rate, as a seven-day average, at 16.71 percent. The highest rate is on Long Island at 18.78 percent and the lowest is the North Country at 8.21 percent. Albany County, according to the state’s dashboard, had a 12.3 percent positivity rate.

Johns Hopkins, which has been tracking positivity rates across the United States since the spring of 2020, reported on Thursday, that just one state, Wyoming with a rate of 4.37 percent, is below the 5-percent threshold set by the World Health Organization.

On May 12, 2020, the WHO advised governments that before reopening, rates of positivity in testing (i.e., out of all tests conducted, how many came back positive for COVID-19) should remain at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days.

Johns Hopkins reports New York State’s seven-day average at 14.61 percent. The state with the highest rate is New Jersey at 86.75 percent.

“If a positivity rate is too high, that may indicate that the state is only testing the sickest patients who seek medical attention, and is not casting a wide enough net to know how much of the virus is spreading within its communities,” says the Johns Hopkins site.

“A low rate of positivity in testing data can be seen as a sign that a state has sufficient testing capacity for the size of their outbreak and is testing enough of its population to make informed decisions about reopening,” says Johns Hopkins.

Again, since residents are under no obligation to report results of at-home tests, numbers, as McCoy noted, may be artificially low.

Newest numbers

Albany County’s most recent seven-day average of cases per 100,000 is up to 84.8, McCoy reported. New York State is at 248.11 cases per 100,000.

There are now 1,202 active cases in Albany County, up from 1,122 on Wednesday. The number of county residents under quarantine increased to 2,181 from 2,063.

There were eight new hospitalizations since Wednesday, and there are 60 county residents currently hospitalized with the coronavirus — a net increase of two. Seven of those hospital patients are in intensive-care units, unchanged from Wednesday.

Albany County’s COVID-19 death toll remains at 470.

Countywide, 78.9 percent of residents have received at least the first dose of the vaccine, and 71.6 percent have been fully vaccinated.

Support for childcare

The Capital Region has received $31,222,838 in federal funds to support childcare.

The state has awarded $900 million in Child Care Stabilization Grants to programs across New York, Hochul announced on Thursday. The grants are part of a $2.3 billion package funded by the federal American Rescue Plan Act and Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act.

The Office of Children and Family Services awarded funding to nearly 15,000 eligible child-care providers over four months, from August through November.

The office is administering the funds to cover the costs of personnel, rent or mortgage, utilities, facility maintenance or improvements, personal protective equipment, supplies needed to respond to COVID-19, goods and services needed to maintain or resume child-care services, mental health supports for children and employees, and health and safety training for staff.