Westmoreland County added 397 additional covid cases and 9 new deaths Thursday, the Pennsylvania Department of Health reported.
The additional deaths bring the county’s death toll to 326. There have been 122 deaths attributed to the disease this month in the county. The county ranks as the 12th-highest death toll in the state.
After topping the 15,000 mark on Wednesday, the total number of cases in the county now stands at 15,545, with 11,917 confirmed and 3,628 probable since the first cases were reported in March.
The Department of Health defines a probable case as one in which a patient has “a positive serology (antibody) test and either covid-19 symptoms or a high-risk exposure” to someone who has been confirmed to have coronavirus.
The county’s seven-day average is 454 cases and the county’s seven-day case total is 3,176, both just shy of the record highs set Wednesday.
According to the state’s covid-19 dashboard, 167 Westmoreland County residents are hospitalized for covid-19, 24 of them are in intensive care units and 21 of them are on ventilators
Officials at Excela Health stressed that while number of patients hospitalized in Westmoreland County because of the coronavirus has jumped recently, the hospital system can handle the number of people needing medical attention.
