Westmoreland County adds 400 more covid cases in past 2 days

Another 404 cases of coronavirus were added to Westmoreland County’s total over the past two days, according to a Monday report from the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Officials said 231 cases were added Sunday and another 173 added Monday.

Of the new cases, 315 cases were confirmed through 817 PCR tests, while 89 cases were listed as probable.

While the county’s latest Sunday-Monday report is slightly higher than last week’s (359), the county has seen a 28.5% decrease in new cases over the first 11 days of January (2,693) than the first 11 days of December (3,765).

Officials also announced seven new covid-related deaths in the past two days. That brings the county’s death toll from the virus to 483 since the pandemic began 10 month ago.

According to the state’s covid-19 dashboard, there are currently 159 county residents hospitalized with the virus, 21 of them in the intensive care unit and 11 on respirators. Westmoreland County has seen an increase in covid hospitalizations in the past month. Over the first 11 days of January, the county has seen an average of 170 people hospitalized, a 33% rise from the first 11 days of December (128).

As of Jan. 10, state officials report that 6,873 doses of covid-19 vaccines — including both Pfizer and Moderna — has been administered in Westmoreland County.

Health officials define a probable case as one in which a patient has a positive viral antigen test or covid symptoms with a “high-risk exposure” to someone who has been confirmed to have coronavirus.

To date, the county has registered 22,026 cases of the virus, with 16,206 of those cases confirmed through PCR tests. A total of 76,259 individuals in the county have tested negative.