Counties have been running COVID-19 testing facilities, tracing contacts, managing quarantine, “leading a 24/7 emergency response” as well as providing food assistance to families and seniors in need and schoolchildren, said Stephen Acquario, executive director of the New York State Association of Counties. At the same time counties are providing these essential, but often not budgeted services, Acquario said, they have “faced an economic quadruple threat.”

Another 13 Albany County residents tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday, including four linked to a Fourth of July party in Albany, bringing that total to 15.

Albany County is dealing with a growing cluster of COVID-19 cases from a Fourth of July gathering where party-goers didn’t wear masks and didn’t keep their distance.

Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy sounded the alarm Wednesday because the county had 44 new COVID-19 cases, the highest one-day total since May 20. Throughout the week, the state announced initiatives to feed, house, and insure New Yorkers suffering from the coronavirus shutdown.

The state has set up a program, with federal funds, to provide aid for tenants who lost income due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

ALBANY COUNTY — Albany County is down $16 million from where it was last year for second-quarter sales-tax revenues, the county’s executive Daniel McCoy, reported on Monday.

He termed the 25-percent drop from a year ago “a very huge hit.”

The Karner blue butterfly, which lost 99 percent of its population when it was protected as endangered 28 years ago, is making a dramatic comeback this summer in the Albany Pine Bush.

“We’re starting to see a slight uptick in cases, which is a big concern,” said Albany County Health Commissioner Elizabeth Whalen, noting, “It only takes a small number of cases to start … exponential growth of COVID in the county.”

“Numbers speak,” said Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy as he noted that the Capital Region, among New York’s 10 regions, is tied with the Southern Tier, for second lowest in percentage of positive tests, at 0.7 percent; the very lowest is the North County at 0.1 percent.

“We tried some things at the organizational meeting and really quickly, maybe a month later, we realized that maybe those weren’t the right steps so we got those boards back reinstated pretty quickly,” said Berne Supervisor Sean Lyons on Friday.