Steve Hughes and Mike Goodwin are reporting for the Times Union St. Peter's Health Partners in Albany is once again restricting patient visitations. St. Peter's and Samaritan Hospital in Troy are going back to the policy enacted last spring to limit visitation when the coronavirus was at its peak. The only visitors the hospitals are allowing in are those visiting dying patients, parents or guardians of a child undergoing care, the partners of women in labor and people who are essential for the care of special needs patients like those with Alzheimer's disease, a hospital spokesman said. St. Peter's started the limited visitations over the past weekend. Other hospitals in the region are expected to set similar guidelines. "We're just trying to get ahead of the curve," spokesman Robert Webster said. Albany Medical Center Hospital presently allows patients to have one visitor per day, but hospital spokeswoman Sue Ford Rajchel wrote in an email, "we are reviewing our guidelines." Columbia Memorial Health in Hudson implemented a modified visitation plan due to COVID-19 on October 30. The second wave of coronavirus infections, hospitalizations and deaths is well underway in the Capital Region. Hospitals, schools and others large employers in the region have taken proactive steps over the last two months to try to limit the spread of the disease. But for weeks now, local counties have watched infections and hospitalizations increase. Read the full story in the Times Union.