10 residents of Halfmoon adult home test positive for COVID-19; One hospitalized

PHOTOGRAPHER: Marc Schultz

A COVID-19 testing site in Schenectady recently

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HALFMOON — A COVID-19 infection cluster has been detected in a Halfmoon assisted living facility.

A spokesman for the Saratoga County Department of Public Health Services said late Friday afternoon that 10 residents at the Cook Adult Home have tested positive for the virus.

One has been hospitalized, one is now in a rehabilitation center and the other eight remain on site in isolation at their residences.

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Public Health Services is working with managers at the Cook Adult Home to prevent further spread of the highly contagious disease at the facility, which sits on Prospect Street just over the city of Mechanicville’s southwest border.

COVID-19 is most dangerous to the elderly and those with serious pre-existing health problems. Two-thirds of the 21,000-plus New Yorkers who have died with confirmed COVID infections have been 70 or older.

Nursing homes and adult-care facilities are potential hot spots for the contagion, with large numbers of elderly living communally. Numerous facilities statewide have seen residents die, sometimes by the dozens.

More than 4,000 facility residents are known dead statewide but the true scope of the problem is unknown — the state is unable to provide an accurate number because it must rely on data provided by more than 1,100 facilities that may be incomplete, incorrect, outdated, or some combination of the three.

Further, the tally counts only those who died in a facility, not residents who are transferred to a hospital or other site and die there.

The state’s incorrect tally shows zero confirmed or suspected COVID-related deaths at nursing homes or adult-care facilities in Saratoga County as of Thursday.

Earlier this week, The Daily Gazette asked the county Public Health Services spokesman to clarify whether the state list was correct, or whether in fact there had been deaths at one or more Saratoga County facilities.

He did not respond.