Regional

Albany County now has 915 confirmed cases of COVID-19, up 51 from Saturday. The county executive attributed the continuing increase to aggressive testing. 

“Forty to 50 percent of businesses, retail businesses may not reopen … That’s a sad and hard truth but also out of this, you’re going to have innovation, you’re going to have people who are doing things that they never thought they could do,” said local business owner Tom Nardacci.

“We can’t test you if you have no signs … We just can’t afford to do it right now,” says Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy of diagnostic tests for COVID-19.

“Our members are scared about … what’s going to happen with their business and also how will they open up,” said Maureen McGuinness, president of the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce. “Can their business survive in a post-pandemic world?”

 “The strategy is to get them off the street, provide a safe haven, and hopefully they’ll start to work with our staff on some counseling,” said Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple of the wing of jail that now houses a handful of homeless people. “The ultimate goal is to get them back employed. 

As domestic violence has increased with coronavirus restrictions, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Friday that the state will immediately modernize its hotline with a new text program and a confidential online service to help victims of abuse and provide potentially lifesaving ways to get help.

Every New Yorker is to receive a postage-paid application for an absentee ballot, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Friday. He had earlier issued an executive order allowing residents to vote by mail in the June 23 primary election.

The new mandate is to be carried out by the state’s board of elections.

“We’re still getting 20 to 30 positives a day,” said Albany County’s health commissioner, Elizabeth Whalen. “We’re still at that plateau level.”

On Friday, two dozen State Assembly members, led by Patricia Fahy, called on New York’s senators and congress members to create a modern-day, New Deal-style Works Progress Administration similar to the jobs program that was created by the federal government under President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression.

The American Red Cross of Eastern New York is asking for healthy volunteers.

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