Allegheny County seeing nearly 20% fewer new covid cases than a week ago

Despite a steady day-to-day increase in new covid-19 cases this week, Allegheny County is still seeing 19% fewer new cases than at this time last week.

On the day before Christmas, the Health Department reported 912 new cases — 630 confirmed through 1,958 PCR tests, conducted from Nov. 30 through Wednesday. There were 38 positives from tests more than a week old.

There were 282 cases listed as probable. Health officials define a probable case as one in which a patient has a positive viral antigen test or covid symptoms with a “high-risk exposure” to someone who has been confirmed to have coronavirus.

New cases range in age from 1 month to 101 years with a median age of 47 years.

While new cases continue to trend down, the same cannot be said of covid-related deaths in Allegheny County. There were 53 new covid-related deaths added Thursday, the second-highest such report of the pandemic. The highest (55) was one week ago.

The new deaths include information imported by the state from the Electronic Death Reporting System (EDRS). The dates of death ranged from Nov. 11 to Wednesday, with three of the deaths occurring in November. Two of those who died were in their 60s, 12 in their 70s, 21 in their 80s and 18 in their 90s. Of the deaths, 32 were associated with long-term care facilities.

As far as the new cases are concerned, Allegheny County’s seven-day total has dropped from 7,150 on Dec. 17 to 5,793 with the newest report.

Allegheny does remain a hot zone in the state. For another day, the county posted the highest new covid cases. Only Philadelphia (739) came close. Other high-posting counties included Montgomery (488), Lancaster (413), Bucks (397), Lehigh (394) and Westmoreland (368).

The age breakdown of the latest cases — 498 female, 414 male — is:

• Ages 0-4: 14
• Ages 5-12: 29
• Ages 13-18: 30
• Ages 19-24:82
• Ages 25-49: 340
• Ages 50-64: 201
• Ages 65 and over: 216

The Pennsylvania Department of Health reports there are 767 Allegheny County residents hospitalized for covid-19, with 197 of them in the intensive care unit and 109 on a ventilator.

The county’s seven-day average number of patients in the hospital dropped 3% from 822 last week to 797 the past seven days.

At the Allegheny County Jail, officials report there are 38 inmates in the facility currently with covid-19; 71 have either recovered or been released. Among workers, 71 have tested positive, with 53 having recovered to date.

Since the pandemic began, 49,650 county residents have been recorded as covid-19 cases, with 294,770 testing negative. The county estimates that 17,682 have recovered from the virus.

Cases are considered to be “recovered” after it’s been 32 days since the person was hospitalized for covid-19 and not deceased, or if they weren’t hospitalized within 14 days of testing positive. Per the county’s website, “the outcome of people not in the recovered cases group or in the deaths group are unknown.”