More in Ulster have recovered from Covid-19 than are currently infected

Ulster County reached a milestone this week: The county now has more people who have beat Covid-19 than are currently infected.

Presently there are 660 active cases and 839 recovered cases.

The shift happened in just the last few days. The county reported 15 new cases and 16 new cases yesterday while during that same time the number of active cases fell from 814 to 660.

In other good news, those 15 and 16 new cases came on days when nearly 500 and nearly 400 tests were conducted, which were the most and third most single-day tests processed in Ulster since the testing began in March. Last week County Executive Pat Ryan singled out the decline in new daily positive cases cooinciding with increased testing as proof the county had “turned the corner” on the outbreak locally. The results posted in these last two days underscores that point.

Here’s the graph of active cases over time:

And the graph showing positive and negative tests as a portion of all tests conducted:

Here’s how the active cases looked by town on Wednesday vs. today:

While Ulster is making progress, it won’t enough to begin easing restrictions. According to the state’s guidelines, the Mid-Hudson Region, which for the purposes of re-opening includes Ulster, Dutchess, Sullivan, Orange, Putnam, Westchester and Rockland counties, is lagging on two of the state’s seven indicators required to enter phase one of re-opening.

They are:

• 14-Day Decline in Hospital Deaths OR Fewer Than Five Deaths Per Day (3-day rolling average)
• New Hospitalizations Per Day (2 per 100k residents, 3-day rolling average)

Our region has 5 days of declining deaths and an average of 69 per day and 2.77 new daily hospitalizations.

Five the state’s 10 regions met those benchmarks by today, allowing them to begin a phased re-opening of manufacturing, construction and some other activities deemed less risky. They are: the Finger Lakes, Central New York, Mohawk Valley, North Country and the Southern Tier. You can keep track of the online dashboard here.

In other reopening news, the governor announced today that the state’s beaches would reopen a week from today for Memorial Day weekend, albeit with some changes.