County officials throughout the week warned that the surge from Christmas gatherings had not yet run its course and urged residents not to party for New Year’s celebrations.

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.

James Herbert “Jim” Chmielinski, formerly of Berne, died on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020. He was 73.

The New York Army National Guard has recently promoted:

— Breanna Center from Singerlands, assigned to the 1427th Transportation Company, who received a promotion to the rank of staff sergeant on Nov. 20; and

Under the state’s original micro-cluster system, which designated the most severe red zones followed by orange and yellow zones, Albany County would have been named a red zone, the county executive said. Now, the state’s focus is on hospital capacity, where the Capital Region is also struggling.

In two new executive orders on Monday, Governor Andrew Cuomo froze salaries for statewide elected officials and commissioners and he extended the state’s moratorium on evictions.

Governor Andrew Cuomo said the questions the state is trying to answer are: “Can you do it? Can you use testing to reopen a business safely? And can you do it on a large scale, which would be the Bills?”

“We want to send a clear signal to the providers that if you violate the law on these vaccinations, we will find out and you will be prosecuted,” said Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Based on Sunday’s test results, the Capital Region’s infection rate is 8.48 percent. Of the state’s 10 regions, only two areas are higher.

A man in his fifties and a woman in her eighties were the latest to succumb to the virus. This brings Albany County’s COVID-19 death toll to 206.

ALBANY COUNTY — The news on COVID-19 continued to be grim on Dec. 26 as another county death from the disease was reported as well as 245 new cases.