MidHudson News reports that on April 5 there were 598 new COVID-19 cases reported in the Hudson Valley. There were only ten new cases in Greene County, and three in Columbia County, but there were 57 more in Dutchess County, 98 new cases in Orange County, and 42 in Ulster County. A few days before the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed Oswego and Cayuga counties in central New York among 16 in the country right now with a "high" COVID-19 transmission risk. A new omicron strain, BA.2, has taken over at the same time mask mandates have ceased across the country. Read more about this story at MidHudson News.