Allegheny County reports Pa.'s highest batch of new covid cases

Allegheny County on Monday posted the highest number of new coronavirus cases in Pennsylvania, recording more than twice as many new cases than the next county.

Officials with the county’s Health Department reported 781 additional cases Monday. The next highest new-case count was recorded in Lehigh County with 382.

Over the two-day period of Sunday and Monday, Allegheny County added 1,412 new cases, with 631 reported Sunday.

Of the new cases, 1,155 were confirmed through 4,177 PCR tests, while 257 were consider probable cases. The new cases range in age from 2 weeks to 102 years with a median age of 44 years. The positive tests were conducted from Dec. 10-20. Three of the positive tests are more than a week old.

Monday’s 781 cases were slightly higher than the 750 reported Dec. 14, reversing this past week’s trend of lower cases from the previous week.

As of Sunday, Allegheny’s covid-19 cases from Dec. 14-20 (6,206) were 6.2% lower than they had been from Dec. 7-13 (6,619).

The county announced three new deaths, which officials said occurred Dec. 19 and 20. One of the people who died was in their 60s, one in their 70s and one in their 80s. One of the deaths was associated with a long-term care facility.

Allegheny’s 1,412 new covid cases over the Sunday-Monday period was tops in the state as well. It was followed by Philadelphia (773), York (689), Lehigh (668), Bucks (622), Montgomery (619) and Lancaster (606).

The Pennsylvania Department of Health reports there are 804 Allegheny County residents hospitalized for covid-19, with 169 of them in the intensive care unit and 117 on a ventilator.

The county’s seven-day average number of patients in the hospital increased 3.4% from 802 last week to 829 the past seven days.

The state reports there are 12.5% of the county’s ICU beds available, which is a slight increase from last week’s 11%.

The breakdown of age groups of the newly reported cases — 754 female, 658 male — were:

• Ages 0-4: 17
• Ages 5-12: 36
• Ages 13-18: 76
• Ages 19-24: 133
• Ages 25-49: 515
• Ages 50-64: 367
• Ages 65 and older: 268

Since the beginning of the pandemic in March, Allegheny County has amassed 47,111 covid-19 cases, 39,262 of them confirmed through PCR tests. A total of 290,883 individuals have tested negative for the virus.