In its weekly update on covid-19 Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Department of Health reported 24,862 new cases in the past week.

The latest batch of cases are 15% fewer than last week’s report of 29,227. Pennsylvania is now averaging 3,552 new cases per day.

Despite the lower number new cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that several more counties moved from medium to high levels of covid transmission in the past week, including Westmoreland, Beaver and Butler counties. In all, the CDC lists 28 Pennsylvania counties as having high levels of covid transmission. There are 24 counties that have a medium level of transmission, including Washington, Armstrong and Indiana. Among the low level counties — 15 of them — are Lawrence, Greene, Fayette and Somerset.

Cases

In the past week, Allegheny County reported 3,294 new cases, a 22% decline in cases. The county’s daily new case average is 471 cases per day.

In Westmoreland County, 624 new covid-19 cases were reported in the past seven days, with the daily average dropping from 118 per day to 89 per day.

Since the pandemic began, there have been 2,932,186 cases in Pennsylvania — 2.4 million confirmed through PCR testing and nearly 508,000 listed as probable. In Allegheny County, there have been 282,476 total cases and in Westmoreland, 83,060.

Deaths

While new cases have dropped, the state’s covid-related deaths have nearly doubled in the past week.

Since last week’s report, there have been 107 new covid-related deaths added to the state’s pandemic total of 45,254. The state is now averaging 15.3 deaths per day, as opposed to 7.7 one week ago.

Health experts, such as Allegheny County’s health director Dr. Debra Bogen, have pointed out that the rise and fall of death rates lag behind cases by two weeks.

The Allegheny County Health Department’s website shows 3,284 covid-related deaths, 16 more than last week’s death total. The state is reporting that Allegheny County has 3,357 total covid deaths, an increase of nine in the past week. The discrepancy has long been unaccounted for between the departments.

Westmoreland County’s covid death total stands at 1,393 — three more than a week ago.

Hospitalizations

There are 1,329 Pennsylvanians hospitalized with covid-19. Of those, 151 (11.7%) are in intensive care and 50 on ventilators. While there are 43 additional covid patients hospitalized in the state this week, the number of ICU patients remained the same, with two fewer patients on ventilators.

In Allegheny County, there are 193 residents in the hospital — an increase of 16 in the past week. There are 16 Allegheny County residents in ICUs and four on a ventilator. Westmoreland County’s hospitalized numbers dropped by five to 14 patients — just one of them in the ICU and no one on a ventilator.

Vaccinations

There are around 8.7 million Pennsylvanians (67.3%) fully vaccinated against coronavirus, with 10.5 million (81.2%) at least partially vaccinated.

In Allegheny County, 837,257 (68.4%) are fully vaccinated, with 985,887 (80.6%) at least partially covered. In Westmoreland, those numbers are 226,867 (62.1%) and 199,760 (54.7%).

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