Allegheny County reports 499 additional covid cases, 3 deaths

Allegheny County on Thursday reported three new coronavirus deaths, bringing the total number of deaths related to the virus for the county to 1,181.

This comes after the county on Wednesday reported 74 deaths, but attributed the large number to a data backlog at the state level.

The health department said that the date of death for all three was Tuesday. The ages of the deceased were: one person was in their 60s, one in their 80s, and one in their 90s.

One death was associated with a long-term care facility.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health puts Allegheny County’s death total at 1,277. No reason is given for the difference.

The county added 499 new coronavirus cases, bringing the county’s total to 62,938 since the start of the pandemic in March. The county’s seven-day average is 652 cases and the county’s seven-day total is 4,566. These figures are nearly identical to last Thursday’s.

Of the new cases, the county said that 298 of them were confirmed through 1,277 new PCR tests conducted from Nov. 23 to Wednesday. Out of the new cases, the department said 201 were probable.

The state 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 11 months to 105 years with a median age of 43. The age groups of the newly reported cases — 240 male and 259 female — are:

• 0-4: 6
• 5-12: 19
• 13-18: 25
• 19-24: 57
• 25-49: 188
• 50-64: 113
• 65+: 91

According to the state’s covid-19 dashboard, 482 Allegheny County residents are hospitalized for covid-19 (down 19 from Wednesday), 170 of them are in intensive care units and 61 of them are on ventilators

The state vaccine dashboard shows that 33,990 partial doses and 5,959 full doses of the vaccines have been administered to county residents.

On Wednesday, Health Director Debra Bogen said the figures on the dashboard were a “significant underestimate.”

But the county said that vaccination process has been slowed due to little help from federal entities and that people 75 and older will have to wait longer to get the covid vaccine in the county.

“We’ve been getting a lot of calls and emails from individuals wanting to know when it will be their turn to be vaccinated, and how they will know,” Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said. “I wish we could answer that. There is a great deal of information that is still unknown.”