Allegheny County ends year with over 53,000 covid-19 cases, 955 deaths

Allegheny County ended the year with a total of 53,809 coronavirus cases and 955 deaths.

The county on Thursday reported 811 additional coronavirus cases and added 10 deaths to the total.

The case numbers have been trending down this week after higher totals were reported in the beginning of the month. But the county added a total of 25,405 cases in December. It was its highest month by far for reported cases, followed by November with 12,608 cases and July with 5,334 cases reported, the other months all had much fewer.

There has been an average of 811 new cases per day over the past seven days, also adding 4,159 new cases in that time.

Of Thursday’s reported 811 cases, the county said that 552 of them were confirmed through 1,641 PCR tests conducted from Dec. 10 to Wednesday. Out of these cases, the department said 259 were probable. Forty-eight positive tests are more than a week old.

The Pennsylvania 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.

New cases range in age from 3 weeks to 103 years with a median age of 50. The age groups of the newly reported cases — 368 male and 443 female — are:

• 0-4: 9
• 5-12: 18
• 13-18: 28
• 19-24: 75
• 25-49: 302
• 50-64: 189
• 65+: 190

The Allegheny County Health Department said that the 10 deaths reported Thursday all occurred this month. The ages of the deceased were: two people in their 70s; four people in their 80s; and four people were in their 90s. Four deaths were associated with long-term care facilities.

The state health department puts Allegheny County’s death total at 1,009, a discrepancy usually attributed to different reporting methods.

According to the state’s covid-19 tracking website, of the 743 Allegheny County residents in the hospital with the virus, 222 of them are in intensive care units and 95 of them are on ventilators.

The state health department recently started a vaccine dashboard to track the number of vaccines administered.

As of Dec. 30, state officials report that 9,948 doses of the vaccine have been administered to people in Allegheny County.

Allegheny County Health Director Dr. Debra Bogen on Wednesday said that the region’s vaccine distribution is on track to ramp up.

“We’ve now got a rhythm and we’re getting faster,” Bogen said during a virtual news conference, while shrugging off criticism over the pace.