Westmoreland County adds 302 new coronavirus cases, 7 deaths over 2 days

Officials with the Pennsylvania Department of Health reported 302 new covid-19 cases over the past two days in Westmoreland County on Monday.

There were 173 new cases Sunday and 129 on Monday. Among the new cases, 152 were confirmed through 385 new PCR tests from Sunday’s batch, while 96 were confirmed in 288 tests from Monday’s.

To date, the county has seen 9,261 cases of the virus.

Positivity rates have been dramatically increasing over the past month. The county’s seven-day positive rate average for new PCR tests is currently 30.60%. At the beginning of the month, the seven-day rate was 17.15%.

Health officials said there were seven more covid-related deaths in the past two days, bringing the county’s total since the pandemic began to one shy of 200.

Hospitalizations for those with covid-19 in Westmoreland County have increased by just over 40% in the past 10 days.

According to the state’s covid-19 tracking website, of the 107 Westmoreland County residents in the hospital with the virus, 17 of them are in intensive care units and 13 of them on ventilators. State officials report there are 89 operational ventilators in the county, with 27 (30%) currently in use for all illnesses.

Since the pandemic began, there have been 7,339 county residents who have tested positive for the coronavirus through a PCR test; 63,542 have tested negative. The overall positivity rate in the county stands at 10.35%.