October covid deaths exceed 100 in Allegheny County

More than 100 people in Allegheny County have died from covid-19 so far this month, a number that will likely increase, health director Dr. Debra Bogen said Wednesday.

“These are mostly preventable deaths,” she said of the 105 deaths since Oct. 1.

A breakdown of deaths by age and vaccination status was not immediately available, though numbers previously released by the health department for September showed that a majority of deaths involved unvaccinated people. Most deaths among vaccinated people involved those who were 65 and older.

The county’s new case count had been below 200 per 100,000 residents for the past five days – a key metric used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – but that streak was broken on Wednesday. The 408 newly reported cases pushed the average back up above the 200 per 100,000 mark.

“I believe we have reached a plateau, but we are still not seeing a significant decline in cases, which I hope will come soon,” Bogen said.

For now, Allegheny County remains in the CDC’s “high transmission” category. Moving down into the “substantial” category hinges on cases being below that 200 per 100,000 mark along with a positivity rate below 10%.

“We’ve really been at similar numbers for about a month, even more now,” Bogen said. “It does look like there’s a very slight decline in our numbers, but we continue to have a positivity rate over 7% according to the state dashboard, so I don’t think we’re there yet.”

Bogen urged parents to equip themselves with accurate information as the Pfizer vaccine inches closer to federal authorization for children ages 5 to 11.

“We know that children are at much lower risk for severe covid than adults and seniors, but the risk is not zero,” she said.

More than 600 children across the country have died from the virus, which has crept into the top 10 causes of death among children in the United States.