Pa. posts new high for daily covid cases, nears 400K total cases

Pennsylvania reported the most new covid-19 cases in a single day Friday.

The state’s 11,763 new cases eclipse Thursday’s 11,406 case count, which was the previous high.

In the past two days, there have been 23,169 cases reported. From the start of the pandemic in March, it took the state 39 days to reach that many cases. The total of Thursday and Friday’s cases also are more than the number of cases reported in the entire month of June.

There were 169 new coronavirus-related deaths reported Friday, making it four straight days to start December with 100 or more deaths reported. A streak like that has been seen only two other times since May (four days, Nov. 18-21; five days, May 19-23).

Total cases and total deaths in the state now stand at 398,600 and 11,113, respectively.

As of Friday, there are 5,230 covid-19 patients hospitalized in Pennsylvania, with 1,065 in the ICU and 596 on ventilators, according to Department of Health data.

Currently, the Southwest region (which includes Allegheny and Westmoreland counties) of the state has a 33% staffing issue — meaning 33% of hospitals in the region expect a staffing shortage within the next week.

On Friday, the county with the most covid-19 cases was Philadelphia with 1,512. Other counties that had the most cases include Allegheny (911), Bucks (729), Lancaster (720), Montgomery (609), Lehigh (484) and Westmoreland (412).