Pennsylvania covid update: 27K cases reported for week

On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Department of Health released its weekly update on covid-19, showing an additional 27,391 infections in the past seven days.

The state is recording new cases of the virus at levels not seen since mid-February. The latest report shows new cases increased 23% over the previous week’s report.

Of the state’s 67 counties, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently lists 13 counties in the medium transmission group, including Allegheny County. Eight counties are listed as having high transmission levels, all of which are in the state’s eastern/northeastern regions. The remaining 46 counties, including all counties but Allegheny in the western half of the state are listed among the low group.

In Allegheny County, 3,521 new covid cases have been reported in the past week, which averages to 503 new cases per day. In Westmoreland County, there were 598 new cases in the past seven days, with an average of 85 per day.

Since the pandemic began, there have been 2,877,660 cases in Pennsylvania — 217,822 confirmed through PCR testing and 57,126 listed as probable. In Allegheny County, there have been 274,948 cases and in Westmoreland, 81,605.

Hospitalizations

The Health Department is reporting 1,156 residents are hospitalized with covid, with 11.7% (135) of them in intensive care and 64 on ventilators. Hospitalizations statewide have increased 27.5% in the past week.

There are 157 patients hospitalized in Allegheny County, with 16 of them the ICU and five on ventilators — numbers that are virtually unchanged from last week. In Westmoreland County, 22 residents are in hospitals, with two patients in the ICU.

Deaths

The state is reporting 38 new covid-related deaths since its report last week, with a current average of 4.6 deaths per day. Since the end of April, the daily average of covid-related deaths has dropped more than 57% (from 10.7).

Pennsylvania has recorded 44,898 deaths since March 2020.

As of Wednesday, the Allegheny County Health Department’s website is showing six new covid deaths in the past week, while state officials report just one new death in that time. The county’s health officials report 3,265 total deaths, while the state shows the total at 3,327. The discrepancy has long been unaccounted for between the departments.

In Westmoreland County, there was one new covid-related death in the past week, bringing the total to 1,380.

Vaccinations

There are around 8.7 million Pennsylvanians (67%) fully vaccinated against coronavirus, 10.5 million (81%) with at least partial vaccination status.

In Allegheny County, 834,205 (68.2%) are fully vaccinated, with 983,242 (80.4%) partially covered. In Westmoreland, those numbers are 226,354 (62%) and 199,236 (54.6%).

Editor’s note: This story has been updated since it first published, with the state releasing new data on cases, hospitalizations and deaths.