Kathleen Moore reports in the Post Star that there is a tale of two Warren County nursing homes that seems to prove how the COVID-19 vaccines are already saving lives in locally. The Warren Center and Glens Falls Center nursing homes had coronavirus outbreaks in January, but they were two weeks apart. The Warren Center outbreak occurred before residents and staff got their vaccine shots, while the Glens Falls Center surge came after most residents got their first dose. In the first wave of the pandemic in the spring, the virus had a fatality rate of 25 percent in local nursing homes But at the Glens Falls Center, where most residents got the first dose of the vaccine, only 10 percent of the residents infected died. At Warren Center, where only half of the residents were vaccinated after the outbreak began, the fatality rate is 17.5 percent. “It is encouraging — it is showing the power of the vaccine,” said Jeffrey Jacomowitz, spokesperson for Centers Health Care, which owns both nursing homes. The nursing home reports that about 50 percent of vaccinated people experienced mild side effects after the second dose, including a mild headache, elevated temperature, and arm soreness for less than a day. Meanwhile, the number of new COVID-19 cases locally is lower than recent weeks, though there are still many deaths. In Columbia County there were 17 new COVID-19 cases and one more death announced Feb. 1, and 38 new cases announced in Greene County. The Daily Freeman reported that Ulster County announced 53 new cases of COVID-19, while Dutchess County reported 155 new cases of COVID and three additional deaths. There were 65 new cases of COVID-19 in Rensselaer County, and 84 new coronavirus cases in Albany County, and two more deaths.