“While New York as a whole is showing signs of statewide COVID infections possibly hitting their peak, that is clearly not the case for Albany County as we report nearly 1,600 new positive cases in a single day, the highest increase we’ve ever experienced since the pandemic started nearly two years ago,” said Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy.

“This is the first case in Albany County and Capital Region history to use investigative genetic genealogy,” said Commander Adam Hornick. The modern technology was used to identify the remains of a man who had died in Bethlehem in 1981.

“We will no longer be doing contact tracing because the numbers of new daily positive cases is too high to keep up with in a time sensitive way,” Albany County Health Commissioner Elizabeth Whalen wrote in an email Wednesday morning, answering Enterprise questions. “We ask that those who test positive notify those who have been around them so they may take appropriate action,” Whalen said.

Albany County has just directed schools to change from a 10-day period of isolation for infected students to a five-day period, so Guilderland is following suit, said Superintendent Marie Wiles.

Albany County distributed 1,000 of its 10,000 free COVID tests through Stewrt’s Shops to try to reach rural residents while Guilderland used an online sign-up to distribute its allotment of tests.

“Those children who are hospitalized do not have to be scared, frightened, lying in a hospital bed; they do not have to be there,” said Governor Kathy Hochul, urging vaccination.

Starting on Monday, visitors to the capitol must be fully vaccinated or provide proof of a negative COVID test within 48 hours, the Office of General Services announced on Saturday. The office also announced that the Legislative Office Building will be closed until further notice “as a necessary precaution in response to the evolving COVID-19 situation.”

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The county has set up an online system, asking residents to fill out a form if they have tested positive for COVID-19: Go to www.AlbanyCounty.com and follow the red COVID-19 information bar at the top of the page to report positive results. So far, county spokeswoman Mary Rozak said on Monday morning, 800 positive tests had been reported through the portal, which was set up last Thursday. “It continues to grow,” she said.

Mary Bassett, the state’s acting health commissioner, said that herd immunity — that is, enough people being vaccinated or having antibodies from having contracted the virus that normal life could resume — “is no longer a useful construct with a virus that mutates as quickly as this one.”