Covid hospitalizations in Pennsylvania drop again
For the second day in a row, hospitalizations in Pennsylvania dropped by more than 100 patients. According to the state covid-19 dashboard, the number of residents hospitalized for the virus is 2,687, down 102 from Wednesday, which was down 101 from Tuesday.
Hospitalizations in the state have been on a decline since mid-December. The highest point of hospitalizations was on Dec. 16 when the state listed 6,346 people in the hospital for the virus.
Of the day’s 2,687 state residents hospitalized for covid, 538 are in intensive care units and 301 are on ventilators.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health on Thursday also added 115 coronavirus deaths, bringing its total number of deaths to 22,860 since the pandemic began in March.
Of the newly reported deaths, 85 are from February, 28 are from January and two are from December.
With 502 deaths so far, February surpassed July (476) and August (498) to become the eighth (and growing) deadliest month. December has the highest number of deaths with 6,322.
The state also reported 3,978 additional cases to bring the total number of coronavirus cases in the state to 884,269.
The state’s seven-day average is at 3,898 cases, and the state’s seven-day total cases is 27,283. The seven-day average has trended down during the month. It is down 16% from last Thursday.
Closer to home, Allegheny County recorded 270 new cases bringing the total cases to 72,447, while Westmoreland saw 86 new cases for the day bringing the total number of cases to 25,602.
Here’s the total number of new cases for the other counties in Southwestern Pennsylvania: Armstrong (22), Beaver (79), Butler (60), Fayette (23), Indiana (14), Somerset (20) and Washington (34).
Philadelphia County had the most new cases in the state with 352, followed by Lancaster (309), Allegheny, Bucks (236) and Montgomery (229).
The state noted that more than 3.7 million people in the state have tested negative for the virus.
According to the state, there are 65,010 resident cases of covid-19 in nursing and personal care homes, and 12,616 cases among employees, for a total of 77,626 at 1,555 facilities.
About 24,023 of the total cases in the state are among health care workers.
Frank Carnevale is the TribLive multimedia editor. He started at the Trib in 2016 and has been part of several news organizations, including the Providence Journal and Orlando Sentinel. He can be reached at fcarnevale@triblive.com.
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