Throughout the county’s 35th week of battling the virus, as COVID-19 cases reached new highs, officials at multiple press conferences implored and admonished residents to follow the simple seven-month-old directives of washing hands, wearing masks, not gathering, and staying six feet from others.

The Albany County Legislature is considering $500,000 to fund a new local develop corporation as well as $300,000 for small-business grants and support.

“If you want to stop the spread and you don’t want to shut businesses down again and you want to get back to somewhat of a new normal … we need your help,” said Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy.

ALBANY COUNTY — Because of a spike in COVID-19 cases, the University at Albany shifted on Tuesday to fully remote learning for the remainder of the fall semester. 

As Albany County nears the apex of COVID-19 cases it had this spring, the county’s executive, Daniel McCoy, worries about another shutdown — which he says many small businesses wouldn’t survive. The state is now using a targeted approach, with restrictions tailored to areas with micro-clusters of the virus.

Stephen Thomas, SUNY Upstate Medical’s chief of Infectious Disease, has been appointed the lead principal investigator for the world-wide Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine trial. The SUNY medical school serves as one of the global third-phase vaccine trial locations.

So far this school year, Guilderland has had four cases of COVID-19 before the current case — two at Altamont Elementary and two at Guilderland High School.

The COVID-19 patient who died was a woman in her sixties, bringing the county’s COVID-19 death toll to 144.

A woman in her nineties with underlying health conditions died of the virus on Thursday. This brings the county’s COVID-19 death toll to 143.

New York’s micro-clusters, until now, had been in Brooklyn and Queens in New York City; in Orange and Rockland counties in the Mid-Hudson region; and in Broome, Steuben, and Chemung counties near the Pennsylvania border.