ALBANY COUNTY — The county reached a sad milestone on Thursday as Executive Daniel McCoy announced the death of a man in his eighties, marking the 500th death of a county resident related to COVID-19.

“It unfortunately won’t be the last,” said McCoy in the release, making the announcement. “While we see progress in our fight in some areas, we need to continue doing what we can to protect our most vulnerable from the virus, which is still spreading.”

McCoy said that between Jan. 18 and 24, five county residents died of COVID and four of them were unvaccinated.

“The vaccine is proven to prevent the most serious illnesses caused by COVID and lowers the chances of death after someone is infected,” he said.

Well over a quarter of county residents are not fully vaccinated.

The number of new infections continues to decline from its Jan. 13 peak of 1,586 new cases reported in a single day. On Thursday morning, McCoy reported 342 new COVID-19 cases with the seven-day average down to 377.4.

Albany County’s most recent seven-day average of cases per 100,000 is now down to 103.5 and the county has an average positivity rate of 11.2 percent.

Statewide, according to the governor’s office, the rate is 97.3 cases per 100,000 population. The region with the lowest rate is New York City at 96.0, and the highest is central New York at 137.8 cases per 100,000.

The infection rate statewide, as a seven-day average, is 8.50 percent and Omicron accounts for 95 percent of the new cases.

Albany County had 13 new hospitalizations since Wednesday, and there are now 107 county residents hospitalized with the coronavirus – a net increase of two. Sixteen of those hospital patients are still in intensive-care units.

State seeks $1.6 billion more for ERA

On Friday, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that New York State has requested an additional $1.6 billion from the United States Treasury Department to help tenants and landlords who have applied for Emergency Rental Assistance.

The state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance — the agency that administers the program — made the formal request ahead of the next round of federal rent relief reallocation. If granted, the funding would cover roughly 174,000 tenant applications that are not yet funded.

“We delivered nearly $1.4 billion for renters struggling from the pandemic, but we must do more. New York State continues to demonstrate a large need for this federal funding,” Hochul said in a statement.

“Our appeal to the Treasury to reexamine its reallocation formula to prioritize high-tenant states like New York represents the latest in our continued and vigorous advocacy for those still reeling from the financial impact of the pandemic,” she said.   

Using rent relief funds, more than 166,000 New York households were protected from eviction and nearly $1.4 billion was distributed to landlords through 109,000 direct payments, the governor’s office reports.

After fully exhausting initial funds for this program, the state requested $996 million in reallocation funding from the Treasury Department, or about enough to cover about 70,000 unfunded applications. The Treasury Department provided New York with an additional $27 million — enough to fund fewer than 2,000 applications.

Earlier this month, New York, California, New Jersey, and Illinois sent a joint letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to request additional federal funding and ensure high-need states with large tenant populations are prioritized.

“As Governors representing over a quarter of America’s population and 30 percent of the nation’s low-income renter households, the Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) Program has been a crucial lifeline for millions of our residents as the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to be felt,” wrote Hochul, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker in the letter to Yellen.

Help for workers with long COVID

New York State is offering new, online educational sessions to help workers who believe they contracted COVID-19 due to an exposure at work, especially those suffering from ongoing long-haul symptoms.

A series of webinars, offered through the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board, will provide information on workers’ rights when it comes to filing a workers’ compensation claim and the cash and/or medical benefits they may be eligible to receive.

Those with a work-related injury or illness have two years from the date of becoming injured or ill to file a workers’ compensation claim, so the deadline is approaching for workers who contracted COVID-19 due to their employment in the early days of the pandemic.

Filing a claim is important because workers’ compensation benefits in an established claim include lifetime medical care for the treatment of the work-related injury or illness.

Even workers who have had a good outcome after COVID-19 can file a claim to protect their future rights to these medical benefits, should they ever need them. Workers should know that, while not all claims will be accepted, there is no risk or harm in filing a claim, even if it ends up getting denied.

Free webinars, open to the public, are scheduled from noon to 1 p.m. on three dates: February 23, March 9, and April 13.