Allegheny County surpasses 55,000 covid cases, draws closer to 1,000 deaths

Allegheny County on Saturday recorded a 48-hour total of 1,601 new coronavirus cases.

Officials reported 553 cases on New Year’s Day and 1,048 cases the day after.

The county has reported nine days of 1,000 or more new cases.

Twenty-two new deaths were reported Saturday, lifting the county’s toll at 977. That’s 124 more deaths than this time last week.

December had recorded 446 — or just nearly 46% — of covid-related deaths in Allegheny County.

Wednesday’s report included 47 deaths, a high for the week.

Of the newly reported deaths, two people were in their 60’s; four were in their 70s; 10 were in their 80s and six were in their 90s.

Thirteen deaths were associated with long-term care facilities.

The dates of death ranged from Dec. 10 to Dec. 27.

The county has had 55,410 cases of covid-19, according to data from the Allegheny County Health Department.

Of the new cases, 1,224 are confirmed, while 377 are listed as 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 recent batch of samples comprising 4,151 tests were collected from Nov. 18 through Friday. One hundred twenty-two of those positive tests were more than a week old, officials said.

The tests yielded a positivity rate of about 29.5%. The cases range in age from 5 months to 104 years old, with a median age of 49.

Fifteen new hospitalizations were reported during the 48-hour period. Officials say 3,219 people have been hospitalized — 143 more than this time last week — since the virus was first reported in Allegheny County on March 14.

Throughout December, the county had amassed 25,405 new cases. This represents nearly 46% of Allegheny County’s cases.

That averages 820 per day (down from an avg. of 910 during the middle of the month); during the peak of its surge, the county was on pace to rack up 28,210 cases for the month.

In November, officials recorded 12,608 new cases. December more than doubled that amount.

In the entirety of October, the county saw 3,448 new cases of the virus, which was an increase of 72.3% from September (2,001).