Allegheny County posts new record number of coronavirus cases, 3 new deaths

A steady rise in coronavirus cases in Allegheny County continued Thursday with the addition of 412 new cases, the highest daily total since the pandemic began in March.

The county saw 366 new cases on Wednesday, 317 on Tuesday and 270 cases on Monday.

There has been an average of 307 new daily cases in the county over the past seven days, adding 2,152 new cases in that time. The county’s total number of cases is 18,751.

There were three new deaths reported, bringing the total number of deaths to 456. The deaths were associated with long-term care facilities with one person in their 60s, one in their 70s and one in their 90s.

Out of Thursday’s cases, the Allegheny County Health Department said 341 were confirmed and 71 were probable from 1,725 PCR tests. The daily PCR test positivity rate — the percentage of PCR tests that come back positive — in Allegheny County was 19.77%.

New cases range from 11 months to 98 years old with a median age of 38. The dates of positive tests ranged from Oct. 28 to Wednesday. Only one positive case is more than one week old.

The age groups of the newly reported cases — 191 males and 221 females — are:

• 0-4: 8
• 5-12: 18
• 13-18: 27
• 19-24: 60
• 25-49: 154
• 50-64: 93
• 65+: 52

The county reported the there are eight new hospitalizations. According to the state covid-19 dashboard, 259 people in Allegheny County are hospitalized for the virus, with 35 patients on a ventilator.

Hospitalizations are on the rise in Western Pennsylvania, but the region’s health systems are projecting confidence in their ability to maintain capacity as covid-19 cases surge again.

“We’ve been planning and preparing for a variety of surge situations over the past many months,” Dr. Rachel Sackrowitz, chief medical officer of UPMC’s ICU Service Center and executive vice chair of critical care medicine, said Wednesday.