ALBANY COUNTY — In its 39th week of coping with COVID-19, Albany County broke several records more than once, and the county executive, Daniel McCoy, announced nine deaths from the disease, starting with five last Thursday.

“It’s like I’m the keeper of their stories,” Cindy Pollard once said of using her Home Front Café as a memory trove for veterans. “They’re important, each and every one of them … For the ground soldiers in the Pacific, it was kill or be killed. They saw such horror, they can’t talk about it … If they do, they’re back there. They smell the smells and have weeks of bad dreams.”

Beginning on Thursday, Dec. 10, Guilderland students in eighth through 12th grade will learn from home due to staff shortages caused by quarantine requirements.

With a continuing surge in COVID-19 cases, the county’s health department is deluged with calls and is experiencing a backlog, its commissioner said. She urged residents who test positive for the virus to look at guidance for isolation on the department’s website, and residents who have been exposed to COVID-19 to look for guidance on following quarantine protocols.

ALBANY COUNTY — Governor Andrew Cuomo today directed the state’s health department to begin the surge-and-flex protocol that will have all hospitals expand their bed capacity by 25 percent to handle surges of COVID-19.

Public browsing at the Guilderland Public Library will wait until at least mid-January since massive construction work as well as restrictions to control COVID-19 make the planned reopening unsafe, trustees decided after hearing staff concerns. “Our lives depend on it,” said one library staffer of the delay.

Albany County announced 143 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, continuing a recent trend of over100 new cases a day.

ALBANY COUNTY — Leaders from nearby Rensselaer and Schenectady counties joined Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy, a Democrat, at his Saturday morning press conference to present a united front in the battle against COVID-19.

Since the springtime surge of COVID-19, the length of hospital stays for COVID patients has been more than cut in half, says the governor, and the death rate of hospitalized patients has gone from 23 percent to 8 percent.

GUILDERLAND — For the third day in a row, Superintendent Marie Wiles has sent out a “Dear GCSD Families” email announcing another case of COVID-19 in the Guilderland Central School District.