ALBANY COUNTY — Two more county residents — a woman in her sixties and a man in his seventies, both with underlying health issues — have succumbed to COVID-19, bringing the county’s death toll to 51.

As of Tuesday morning, 1,236 Albany County residents have tested positive for coronavirus disease 2019 with 1,107 under mandatory quarantine and four under precautionary quarantine. So far, 2,722 individuals have completed quarantine, with 662 of them having tested positive and recovered.

Thirty-three county residents are currently hospitalized with eight in intensive-care units. The hospitalization rate for Albany County stands at 2.66 percent. 

“Overall … our numbers are steady,” said Albany County Health Commissioner Elizabeth Whalen at Tuesday’s county press briefing. “We have done a pretty good job flattening our curve and we have not seen issues with surge capacity in our hospitals, similar to downstate.”

Whalen went on, “There is no plan for reopening in any scenario across the country that will not involve the continued importance of hand hygiene, of keeping social distance … of wearing masks when you are out and about.”

In response to arguments she has heard that the requirement to wear a mask when closer to someone than six feet is an infringement on individual rights, Whalen said, “I as an individual have a right to move my arm wherever I want to move it but, if my fist makes contact with your face, then I have lost my individual right.”

She warned that people with COVID-19 can be asymptomatic transmitters and that they must wear masks to protect others.

“That is a right of others to have you wear a mask,” said Whalen.

This protocol will continue, she said, “until we have more knowledge” or until a vaccine is available.