ALBANY COUNTY — The Capital Region — of which Albany County is a part — is on track for the second phase of reopening on June 3, according to the county’s executive, Daniel McCoy.

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Friday afternoon that five other regions — Central New York, Finger Lakes, Mohawk Valley, North Country, and Southern Tier — could enter Phase 2.

Those regions met the state’s required metrics ahead of the Capital Region. There was some consternation that the Phase 2 reopening in those five regions would be delayed as Cuomo had international experts review the state’s data.

Albany County Minority Leader Frank Mauriello, a Republican from Colonie, put out a statement on Friday scolding the governor for a delay that never materialized. “We can’t sit on the sidelines and watch as our friends and families lose their jobs and businesses. The Capital Region is set to reopen on Wednesday and it’s critical we do so,” Mauriello said, calling for power to be restored “to the people of New York, not ‘international experts.’”

New York City is the only one of the state’s 10 regions not to have started reopening and it is slated to start Phase 1 on June 8, Cuomo said at his Friday press briefing held in New Rochelle, the initial epicenter for the coronavirus outbreak.

“You have to be smart and we have seen what has happened, painfully, when cities and states and countries reopen too quickly. They wound up closing again which is the worst situation, so be smart,” said Cuomo.

He went on, “We have the data … All the local officials sign off, the regional officials sign off, the best state experts, and then we go to global experts who have done this in countries around the world, who frankly have more experience than we do because they’ve been through this, the crisis and the closing and the opening and the closing again. And we review all the data with them, and I want to thank them very much for taking the time to go through the data.”

One of the experts who reviewed the data supplied by New York State is Samir Bhatt, a senior lecturer in geostatistics at the Imperial College London’s Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology.

He said, in a release from the governor’s office, of the state’s data dashboard, “This COVID dashboard transparently shows to all those living in New York what is happening in their region. As New York begins to move some regions from Phase 1 to Phase 2, these metrics provide a robust foundation for tracking the disease. First, we check if testing targets are being met. Next, we look at new infections: measured both by new cases and the test positivity ratio.

“We also look at case severity, which is measured by new hospitalizations. And finally, we monitor hospital capacity. We are carefully looking at these data for the five regions that are ready to move forward and want to see a consistent signal across all metrics. This dashboard gives us a crucial early warning system should the trends shift going forward.”

The early-warning dashboard, which Cuomo said was developed in consultation with internationally-known experts, tracks new infections and their severity as well as hospital capacity by region among other metrics. Its purpose, Cuomo said, is to let government officials as well as citizens monitor and review how the virus is being contained.

McCoy opened his Friday morning briefing, perhaps in reference to the controversy of having experts review New York’s data, by saying, “We need to work together to find the solutions to the problems, not create more problems or throw bombshells or point fingers. We’ve got to figure this out together, people.”

At the end of his briefing, when asked if he anticipated a delay in the Capital Region moving to Phase 2, McCoy said, “The guidance we got from our control room last night was good … Everything we need is going in the right direction.”

He also said, “It’s my understanding our data is being looked at every second of every day.”

Phase 2 opens office-based businesses, real-estate services, barber shops and hair salons by appointment, and retail outlets among others, accounting for more than half of the jobs in Albany County. These businesses and the protocols for reopening them were posted on the state’s website just before the Phase 2 reopenings in five regions. An earlier list is found in the Capital Region’s reopening plan as well.

Businesses that still remain closed during Phase 2 include indoor malls with more than 100,000 square feet of retail space, dine-in restaurants and bars, event venues, gyms, indoor movie theaters, gaming parlors, and places of public amusement.

“It’s not just, open the doors and everybody has a party. It’s 50-percent occupancy in office buildings, signage on markers, et cetera, no meetings without social distancing, don’t share food or beverages,” said Cuomo at his press briefing.

He also said, “Malls are closed except stores that open to external entrances, curbside, but again, very detailed guidelines. Barber shops, hair salons, are open, by appointment only. The professionals in those operations have to get a test every two weeks ... And we recommend to customers to ask the barber or professional in the hair salon if they had a test before you used their services. That’s a recommendation.”

The governor concluded, “Wear a mask, get tested, and socially distance. It is that simple, but that hard.”

McCoy said he believed local Phase 2 businesses have plans in place to open safely.

He reported on some answers he had gotten at Thursday’s 7 p.m. “control room” meeting where representatives of each of the Capital Region’s counties along with state officials videoconference.

“Dentists’ offices can be open for emergency stuff,” said McCoy, but not for routine procedures like teeth-cleaning or whitening.

Businesses in the “elective out-patient treatment category,” McCoy said, which included services for special-needs children like speech therapy and occupational therapy can reopen in Phase 2.

McCoy said he’s heard from parents of special-needs students who are concerned their children are “falling behind” with schools closed. “It’s huge for these parents … We can move forward with that,” said McCoy.

He also said businesses that need hand sanitizer in order to open but haven’t been able to procure it can call 518-720-8036; the county sheriff’s office will distribute it.

Tallies

“Our numbers have been going well,” said McCoy as he reported that Albany County now has 1,686 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 an increase of 21 in the last 24 hours. There are now 682 residents under mandatory quarantine and six under precautionary quarantine.

The five-day average for new daily positives is now 10.4. McCoy noted that this number is going up because those in nursing homes are now being tested twice a week, as required by Cuomo’s executive order.

So far, 4,461 county residents have completed quarantine, with 1,333 of them having tested positive and recovered. That brings the county’s recovery rate up to 79.06 percent.

Albany County’s death toll for COVID-19 remains at 87, with no new deaths in the past nine days.

Twenty-seven county residents are currently hospitalized with three in intensive-care units. The hospitalization rate for Albany County stands at 1.6 percent.