ALBANY COUNTY — Five more county residents died of COVID-19, Albany County Executive Daniel Mccoy announced on Thursday.

He also announced two more broken records.

The latest victims of the disease were a woman in her seventies, two women in their eighties, a man in his eighties, and a man in his nineties.

This brings the county’s COVID-19 death toll to 188.

“This is going to be a rough month for all of us,” said McCoy at his Thursday press briefing.

He also said, “We just hit another record” as he announced 222 positive test results overnight. The former single-day record was 208 on Dec. 10.

McCoy urged county residents to be patient as health-department staff continue to call each person who tests positive for the disease. Each call takes about an hour, he said.

“We’ve gotten new staff. We’ve reassigned people,” said McCoy, to keep up with the surge.

People who test positive for the disease are to isolate for two weeks and people exposed to someone who has tested positive are to quarantine for two weeks.

The health department has guidance on its website for isolating and quarantining.

With hospitalizations, McCoy said that, unfortunately, another new record was set: 100 county residents were hospitalized with the disease on Thursday.

The former high was 98 on Dec. 10.

McCoy said that vaccinations will be administered to residents of the county’s nursing home, Shaker Place, on Monday or Wednesday. But, unlike as originally planned, vaccines will not be available to Shaker Place workers until February.

Albany’s mayor, Kathy Sheehan, said that, while the vaccine is good news, residents have to stay the course until it arrives.

She told a story she described as “heartbreaking” in which the children of an elderly woman told their mother she should not go to the funeral of a dear friend. When Sheehan was asked for counsel, she advised, “You can’t take her.”

The numbers today are tough, Sheehan said at Thursday’s press conference.

“You cannot have people over,” she advised. “You cannot have house parties. You don’t know who is sick.”

Newest numbers

Statewide, New York had a positivity rate, based on Wednesday’s test results, of 5.24 percent, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced. The Capital Region, of which Albany County is a part, had a rate of 6.28 percent.

The Capital Region has 328 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, which is 0.05 percent of the population and leaves 25 percent of hospital beds available. Statewide 0.03 percent of New Yorkers are hospitalized, leaving 26 percent of beds available.

The Capital Region has 266 beds in intensive-care units of which 177 are occupied, leaving 37 percent available. Eighteen Albany County residents were in intensive-care units on Thursday. Statewide, 33 percent of ICU beds are available.

As of Thursday morning, Albany County has had 8,536 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

Of the 222 new cases, 38 had close contact with someone infected with the disease, 170 did not have a clear source of infection identified at this time, two reported traveling out of state, and 12 are health-care workers or residents of congregate settings. 

The five-day average for new daily positives increased to 186.4 from 181.6. There are now 1,601 active cases in the county, up from 1,549 on Wednesday.

The number of people under mandatory quarantine decreased to 3,245 from 3,279. So far, 29,641 people have completed quarantine. Of those, 6,935 had tested positive and recovered.