Pennsylvania reports most new covid cases since mid-December

Pennsylvania on Friday reported 10,178 new cases of coronavirus, the most added in more than three weeks.

This marks a return to more than 10,000 daily reported cases since 10,684 on Dec. 16. The state’s highest daily report was 12,884 back on Dec. 5.

The state now has 703,265 cases since March. Of those, 624,688 are considered confirmed and 78,577 are listed as probable.

Of the new cases, 8,169 are confirmed and 2,009 are 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.

The state reported 215 new coronavirus deaths Friday, 45 are from January and 170 from December. The state has attributed 17,394 deaths to covid-19 since the pandemic began, with 9,333 of those in residents from nursing or personal care facilities.

There are 5,318 people hospitalized for covid-19 across the state with 1,092 of those in intensive care units and 600 using ventilators, according to the state Department of Health covid-19 dashboard. There are 5,960 ventilators in the state and 1,881 are in use for all illnesses.

The counties reporting the most new cases Friday are Allegheny (967), Philadelphia (611), Montgomery (551), Bucks (475) and Lancaster (439).

In nursing and personal care homes, the state reprts 56,278 resident cases of covid-19 and 10,416 cases among employees, for a total of 66,694 at 1,491 facilities.

Statewide, 199,618 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech covid vaccine have been administered through Jan. 7.