Pennsylvania tops 20,000 covid deaths

Pennsylvania on Thursday added 260 coronavirus deaths, bringing its total number of deaths to 20,128 since the pandemic began in March.

The state becomes the seventh to top 20,000 deaths. California has the most covid deaths (34,433), followed by New York (33,415), Texas (32,844), Florida (24,965), New Jersey (20,664) and Illinois (20,285), according to the Covid Tracking Project.

The state reached 10,000 deaths on Nov. 25 and 15,000 deaths on Dec. 27. There have been 2,410 deaths attributed to covid this month in the state.

Of the 260 newly reported deaths, 242 are from January and 18 are from December.

The state Department of Health also reported 5,664 additional cases to bring the total number of coronavirus cases in the state to 788,834.

The state’s seven-day average is at 5,753 cases, and the state’s seven-day total cases is 40,270. Thursday’s seven-day average is the lowest since Nov. 18 when 5,498 cases was the average.

Allegheny County recorded 425 new cases, bringing its total cases to 66,002, while Westmoreland saw 107 new cases bringing its total cases to 23,731.

Here’s the total number of new cases for the other counties in Southwestern Pennsylvania: Armstrong (34), Beaver (44), Butler (92), Fayette (48), Indiana (26), Somerset (25), and Washington (104).

Philadelphia had the most new cases with 597, followed by Forest (514), Allegheny and Montgomery (304).

The state noted that more than 3.5 million people in the state have tested negative for the virus.

According to the state, there are 60,597 resident cases of covid-19 in nursing and personal care homes, and 11,372 cases among employees, for a total of 71,969 at 1,525 facilities.

Out of the total number of deaths, 10,137 have occurred in residents from nursing or personal care facilities.

About 21,862 of the total cases in the state are among health care workers.

According to the state’s covid-19 dashboard, 4,758 state residents are hospitalized for covid, 851 of them are in intensive care units and 530 of them are on ventilators.

While the state updated its vaccination plan on Tuesday, declaring anyone 65 or older and those 16 to 64 with some pre-existing conditions are eligible for the vaccine, supplies fall short of the supply.

On Wednesday medical leaders in Western Pennsylvania warned there is no adequate vaccine supply to meet demand prompted by expanded eligibility in the state.