Covid hospitalizations continue to be a concern in Allegheny, Westmoreland

A day after a data dump by a lab in Allegheny County led to more than 1,300 additional covid cases being reported, the county saw 403 cases on Thursday.

The abnormally high number of cases Wednesday was attributed to GS Lab’s delayed return of data to the state and county.

The 403 cases are more in line with daily reports since the beginning of the year. The seven-day average before the data dump was in the 400s. With Wednesday’s inclusion of the data, the seven-day average jumps to 548 for Thursday.

The new coronavirus cases — 296 confirmed and 107 probable — in the county range in age from 2 months to 95 years with a median age of 31 years. The breakdown of the newly reported cases is 197 male and 206 female.

The additional coronavirus cases bring Allegheny County’s total to 92,788 since the start of the pandemic last year.

Westmoreland County saw an additional 152 cases on Thursday. The seven-day average for the county is 145. Of note is that the county added 1,018 cases over the past seven days. It’s the first time since January that the county has been over 1,000 cases for a seven-day period.

Westmoreland has seen 31,153 covid cases since the start of the pandemic.

Pennsylvania added 5,060 additional cases on Thursday. The state Department of Health noted that the lab that began submitting data this week is still getting caught up and submitted an additional 307 positive antigen test results that were collected more than four days ago.

Pennsylvania’s total number of cases stands at 1,092,852.

Hospitalizations

Covid-related hospitalizations continued to trend upward on the state and county levels.

The number of residents who are hospitalized statewide for the virus is 2,577, down three from Wednesday, according to state data. This comes after 39 additional hospitalizations were added on Wednesday and 67 on Tuesday.

In the state, there are currently 265 covid patients on ventilators and 572 in ICUs.

According to the state’s data, 286 Allegheny County residents are hospitalized for covid (down one from Wednesday), 88 of them are in intensive care units and 35 of them are on a ventilator.

Though hospitalizations in the county are not as high as they were in December and January, they have climbed in the past month from a low of 153 on March 15.

In Westmoreland County, 61 covid patients are hospitalized with 10 in the ICU and five on ventilators. Hospitalizations in Westmoreland have also climbed this month — at the start of April there were 23 patients hospitalized for covid. This comes after an unexplained drop in hospitalizations on March 18 to 26 individuals.

Deaths

The state health department reported 44 additional deaths, as the state’s total grew to 25,566. Of the 44 deaths newly reported Thursday, 42 are from April and two are from March.

The Allegheny County Health Department added no new deaths; its total stands at 1,828.

The state health department has a total of 1,860 deaths for Allegheny County. No reason has been given for the discrepancy between the two health departments.

Westmoreland County saw one additional covid-related death, which brings the total number of covid deaths in the county to 719.

Vaccinations

In a Wednesday press briefing, Dr. Debra Bogen, the Allegheny County Health Department director, stressed that people should get the vaccine as soon as possible.

“The fewer people that get vaccinated, the longer this virus will linger in our lives and the best way to defeat this virus is to continue the vaccine rollout as fast as possible,” Bogen said.

She did say that more than 50% of Allegheny County’s adult population has been partially vaccinated for covid-19. And among residents older than 65, more than 78% have gotten at least one dose.

On Thursday, the state reported that 528,208 of Allegheny County residents (43.2% of all residents, which includes those age 16 and younger) had received at least one dose of a covid vaccine, while 298,513 individuals are fully covered (24.4% of all residents).

The state reported that 131,966 of Westmoreland County residents (36.1% of residents) had received at least one dose of a covid vaccine, while 79,159 individuals are fully covered (21.6% of residents).

In the entire state, over 4.4 million people (34.8% of residents) have received at least one dose of a covid vaccine and over 2.5 million have been fully vaccinated (20.1% of residents).