County officials are urging people not to give in to COVID fatigue just yet as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations start to climb once again in the Capital Region.
While the region is in the midst of a full-court press to vaccinate the public, officials have warned against relaxing precautions too soon as the area has not yet achieved herd immunity and highly transmissible variants of the virus continue to be found in New York.
In Warren County, where COVID-19 numbers have been relatively small compared to more populous areas, the percentage of people testing positive for the virus has increased 31 percent over the past week, officials said Wednesday. Ginelle Jones, county health services director, said indoor gatherings where people have gotten together for meals have been linked to a number of recent cases.
“I am alarmed about the increase in cases that we have been seeing with people who have not been taking precautions,” she said. “People are letting their guard down too soon.”
Coronavirus resources
Detailed map: Check out the Times Union’s New York Coronavirus Case Tracker.
Testing: Local testing sites for COVID-19. Coronavirus testing results for every New York county.
Vaccinations: Track vaccine roll-out in New York. Plus, get answers to commons questions and submit your own here.
Lives lost: Share a remembrance of a Capital Region resident who died from COVID-19.
Daily email: Sign up for the free Coronavirus Updates newsletter.
Meanwhile, Albany County Executive Dan McCoy on Wednesday warned that the county was seeing a rise in hospitalizations. The county, like others in the region, had been seeing a steady decline in hospitalization rates as cases of the virus began to drop from record highs in January.
“Unfortunately the number of county residents in the hospital is starting to move in the wrong direction,” McCoy said. “In the last six days, we’ve gone from 21 current hospitalizations to 30. With the presence of the highly contagious U.K. and now the Brazilian variants in New York, we need to keep our guards up and make sure we don’t see this worrying trend continue.”
Until recently, the Capital Region had been experiencing a month-long plateau in new cases of coronavirus. That appears to have changed in the last week.
A Times Union analysis of data provided by eight local counties showed the Capital Region was averaging 216 cases of the virus a day as of Tuesday, up from a recent low of 188 seen March 15. The average daily share of people testing positive for the virus in the region has remained at or just below 2 percent since mid-February. On Tuesday, that share climbed past 2 percent for the first time since Feb. 18.
Hospitalizations, which tend to lag infections, have also begun to climb. Capital Region hospitals reported treating 110 coronavirus patients on Tuesday, up from 106 the day before and a recent low of 90 on March 17. It may be too soon to declare it a trend, though. The seven-day rolling average of daily hospitalizations in the region continues to hover near 100 as it has for the past two weeks.
Local officials have been pleading with Capital Region residents to get vaccinated if they are eligible, as more-contagious variants begin to circulate across the U.S., including here in New York.
“We’re seeing in other countries a third wave,” Albany County Health Commissioner Dr. Elizabeth Whalen said last week. “The term ‘third wave’ is not something that we want to think about, but it is definitely a possibility and as we see these highly communicable strains emerging and we see spread in different parts of the country and in other countries, this is a major concern for us.”
As of Wednesday, 32 percent of people in the eight-county region had received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine and 16 percent had been fully vaccinated, according to the state’s Vaccine Tracker.
“Please continue to wear a mask, socially distance, cough and sneeze into your elbow, and get tested,” McCoy said Wednesday. “We still need to use these practices until we can get more people vaccinated.”