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Saratoga Hospital overcrowded heading into New Year's Eve festivities

By Shenandoah Briere

Saratoga Hospital overcrowded heading into New Year's Eve festivities

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- On Tuesday afternoon, Saratoga Hospital's emergency department started diverting ambulances to another local hospital due to overcrowding, according to a state Health Department website.

The news came as the city prepared for a major influx of people for Saratoga New Year's Eve festivities, including a fireworks display and a dozen musical acts performing on seven different stages at four venues, headlined by Ben Folds.

Saratoga Springs Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll said the hospital was diverting to Glens Falls due to a high number of flu cases.

"However, if we do have a serious traumatic injury or incident we would get priority and we would be able to go there," he said.

County health data on flu cases was not immediately available. However, on Dec. 18 the state health commissioner declared flu prevalent in the state.

According to the state flu tracker system between Dec. 14 and Dec. 21, there were 16,403 cases. In Saratoga County, there were 91 cases, with 62 of them being Type A flu, 20 Type B flu and nine were not specified.

In the greater Capital Region, Saratoga County had the most cases of any county. Fulton County had five cases, Montgomery County had 10, Schenectady County had 51, Schoharie County had four and Albany County had 45. In the Hudson Valley Greene County had 10 cases and Columbia County had eight cases.

The emergency departments at other area hospitals such as Ellis Hospital in Schenectady and Albany Medical Center in Albany were listed as open on Thursday afternoon.

In total, the state has had over 40,000 flu cases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Dec. 20 said that flu vaccinations are below where they were pre-covid in almost all groups of people.

"Flu vaccination coverage in adults and pregnant women so far this year is similar to last season but is lagging among children," the CDC stated.

According to CDC data as of Dec. 7, only 40.8% of children have received the vaccine compared with 44.2% at the same time last year. The number of children who have gotten the flu vaccine this year is also 10.4 percentage points lower than in the 2019-2020 season.

The CDC said that while it's recommended that people get the flu shot by the end of October they can still get it now.

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