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.

“It’s not going to get better in any likelihood between now and Christmas,” said Albany County Health Commissioner Elizabeth Whalen of surging COVID cases. “It’s likely that we will continue to see cases increase and that they will result in increased hospitalizations and unfortunately increased deaths in the county. The only way we can prevent this from happening is from individual behavior.”

GUILDERLAND — On Thursday evening, another COVID-19 case was announced by the superintendent of Guilderland schools, Marie Wiles, in an email to district families.

GUILDERLAND — All but one of Guilderland’s seven schools has now had a case of COVID-19 this school year as 12 new cases were announced this week — seven of them were announced Wednesday evening. Only Pine Bush Elementary School as yet remains untouched.

The county’s 38th week of dealing with COVID-19 was a week of broken records — for daily new cases of the virus, for hospitalizations, and for deaths.

ALBANY COUNTY — On Tuesday, Albany County announced a record number of new infections — 159 — and also a record number of hospitalizations — 76 — as well as two more deaths from COVID-19.

After consulting with global experts and local governments, the state’s COVID Task Force developed five strategies to combat COVID-19 this winter as cases across the nation increase due to holiday travel, shopping, and gathering as well as cold weather, keeping people indoors.

“We’re probably going to pass yellow, people, and go right to orange at the rate we’re headed,” said Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy on Monday.

A fourth and fifth case of COVID-19 within a week were announced on Monday by the Guilderland Central School District. This makes 20 cases for the district so far this school year.